September 4, 2025 KLSD Board of Education Meeting

001September 4th. Hard to believe. Uh, welcome back to school everyone. May I have a motion to return to public session? Uh, by Carolyn, seconded by Bill. All those in favor? 70. Pause a second for Kim. Sorry, I didn't realize she wasn't sitting. No, >> you got it's a motion by Carolyn, bill 70. Thank you. Sorry, Kim. Um, sorry. I hope that uh everybody's year off is off to a good start. If uh the back to school week last week is any indication, um I think it's going to be a fantastic school year. Grounds are looking amazing. Um so if you all would join me for the pledge of allegiance, that would be great. I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation

002under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> Thank you. And Hudson, I want to welcome you again. And this is your first school board trustee report and we're happy to uh hear from you. >> Awesome. Um, hello to all the board members, district officials, and community members present today. On September 2nd, 2025, Katona Lewisboro School District welcomed back all of its returning and new members to the high school, middle school, and its three elementary schools. Everyone was thrilled to be back on campus and to reunite with their friends and teachers after the summer. At John J. High School, freshmen were welcomed into a changed high school experience compared to previous years. Walking through the doors this year, the new no phones policy was immediately enforced. Students were reminded throughout the day to keep

003devices away. Many teachers followed in suit by also keeping their devices away. This law was initially met with uh extreme pessimism last year by students um especially upper classmen who had been accustomed to using them throughout the school day. Surprisingly though, the new no phones policy, uh it was very wellreceived by students. We felt more engaged with both our teachers and our classmates. Overall, students opinions uh shifted uh very much and the no phone policy fit right into our school and aligned with the vision 2030s plan of belonging and well-being. Another new aspect of the high school this year was the block scheduling. Students held mixed attitudes as they entered the year given the new 82-minute periods. With the first week almost done, students have begun to adjust to the schedules and attitudes have also

004shifted towards it. While some classes may feel longer than in previous years, the overall day goes by much quicker. Students also mention liking not having to do homework for every class each night. The previous 9-day did not work for students. So, this new system is again fitting into our school and the vision 2030s plan for knowledge and skills. There's also the introduction of the new communal lunch to the high school. All students now have lunch at 11:00. Freshman and sophomores can begin purchasing lunch during the A block right at 11:00 and juniors and seniors can begin purchasing lunch during the B block at 11:30. The first few days went very smoothly with all students eating at the same time. To prevent overcrowding um with all the students being in the cafeteria, tables were placed outside

005the courtyard in the main hallway and outside the cafeteria. Additionally, the library was opened up as a lunch space. Many underassmen took advantage of these new spaces. Juniors and seniors were allowed to walk off to the plaza for lunch and seniors can now drive off. There are many juniors and seniors taking advantage of these privileges. Overall, there are still mixed opinions about the lunch. While everyone loves having the entire hour for lunch, many students note that they miss having lunch with a smaller group of friends. Students, however, note enjoying the district now providing free lunch and breakfast to everyone. In other news, John J. High School is hosting its campus night on September 16th. This is an opportunity for parents to come and visit the high school. The first spirit week will take place across

006two weeks with Russia Shana dividing it. Uh this will start on the 18th and the 19th. This leads to homecoming dance on the 20th. Spirit week will continue the following week on the 21st. It will culminate on the in the club fair on the 26th and the John J homecoming white out game on the 27th. The student government will meet in the coming days to discuss the to discuss the themes for spirit week. Our meeting is not yet set. JohnJ Middle School also welcomes students back this week. They're planning on having picture day Friday, September 12th. They will also have their spirit week uh the same day as the high school. Their spirit week themes often mirror the high schools. All middle schoolers are also strongly encouraged to go to the homecoming game on the

00727th. Um they will host their book fair on September 29th through October 1st. The John J. Middle School is also inviting parents in for curriculum night on September 30th. All elementary schools had a great welcome back week. Katona Elementary had a bunch of fun events scheduled. Uh tomorrow, September 5th, the KSPTO will be hosting the welcome back celebration after school. On Saturday, September 6th, uh the K the KS fifth graders will be having uh their car wash in the morning. This is a personal favorite for anyone going through Katona. KS will also have its picture day on September 15th. The increase Miller PTO will be hosting its welcome back celebration tomorrow, September 5th, out after school. Rain or shine IMES will invite its third through fifth grade families to curriculum night on September 11th with

008its kindergarten through 2 grade families invited a week later on September 18th. IME will have its school picture day on September 25th. Last but not least is Metal Pond Elementary, which has a variety of events on the calendar. The Metal Pond PTO will be hosting its welcome back celebration tomorrow, September 5th, after school. MPs will have its picture day on September 11th. Metal Pond will be hosting its special walk/ike to school day on September 12th with their fifth grade car wash the next day on the 13th. Metal Pond invites all parents to join them for curriculum night on September 25th. Overall, the welcome back for students was an exciting time for everyone, especially at the high school. Students did a great job adapting to the new changes and embracing them. Thank you. >> Wow. And

009it's day two. >> It's going to be a busy, fun, exciting time. Thanks, Ten. That was fantastic. >> Appreciate it. >> And I want to say thanks for tying the vision in there. Very nice job. >> Uh, next we turn to board committee reports. I don't know if many have met, but I know that we've had a few meetings. Um, audit committee nothing. Finance, >> facilities. >> I think I can um help everybody feel excited that at our next board meeting, we're going to have a community and boardwide update from our architects and construction managers. So, you know, if you're comfortable with it, I think I'm going to save the details for that future report, but I will just use this as an opportunity to say thank you again to everybody at this table and

010to our operations and maintenance staff and our architects and our construction managers for all of the spectacular work that took place throughout the summer. and thank you for doing additional work because just looking back to our July board meeting where we had to pass the extreme heat condition days policy on very short notice in addition to the work associated with the bond our team really helped to position Katona Lewisboro for success and also for comfort and I'm hoping that our staff and students although it's been a little chillier at the start of the school year this year but we're going to have those hot days and we're going to be ready. So, a huge thank you to everybody involved and very much looking forward to our official update at the next board meeting. Thank you.

011>> That's awesome. Thanks, Marjorie. >> Uh, ALES has not met. Parents council is meeting tomorrow. Uh, policy committee has not met. Sustainability >> has not met. Um I think uh if we do we want to discuss Thrive now or we can hold it for board dialogue at the end so that we can get to our presenters that are here if that's okay. Um Marjorie New York State and Westp. >> Sure. Just briefly we have a few programs on the calendar next week and the week following next week. And I want to thank Hudson for being registered to attend our first ever opportunity for student trustees to get some professional development. I think it's amazing that you're planning to go to that workshop and thank you. Um there's also a board officers orientation and on the

012following week there's a roundt discussion and I know many of us are registered for many of those events and so thank you very much for the support and participation in those events. And then finally at the end of the month, the board of directors will have its first meeting and a retreat for Westp. Um, and we have an advocacy meeting scheduled next week to look ahead to the NISBA resolutions. That's always a busy lively conversation. So stay tuned for more on that. >> Well, thanks Marjorie. >> Thank you. >> Um, and I don't think any of the other ones have met district safety, ERJC, food services, or special education and part Council. So um with that we'll move on to 8.01 if there are any other board announcements. We can then move directly into 9.01

013our literacy audit. And uh we welcome Dr. Christa Morrison and Dr. Molly Ness to join us at the table. We're really excited to hear what you have to share with us tonight. >> You so uh while they get settled in, I'll give you just a little bit of context. Um we were very eager um since I arrived was very eager to get a sense of the health and vibrancy of our instructional program and literacy in particular. Um and upon Ray's arrival um he supported that endeavor. So we spent the fall trying to explore partnerships to uh help fill this need. We're delighted to land with Sterling Literacy after an extensive search and involvement with all the administrators in the district as well. and um they were able to conduct their audit from essentially January to

014to June of last year. Um and so we're really eager to hear from them and um pleased to say that we've already started uh implementing some of the recommendations. So I think we're in for a nice report today. Thank you very much. >> Thank you and thank you for um inviting us. My name is uh Dr. Molly Ness. I am the lead literacy consultant at Sterling Literacy. I'm a former uh professor at Form University and the author of six books in literacy and reading development. >> Hi, thank you. I'm Dr. Christa Morrison and I am the director of literacy and learning at Sterling Literacy and my expertise is in secondary literacy and so my focus for this literacy audit was middle school and high schools. Um well, we wanted to just thank uh the everyone

015who made this work possible, beginning with the board, district leaders, principles, teachers who opened up their classrooms, and the students who um all participated in this extensive audit. It was a district-wide K through 12 review that took place from January to late May, early June of 2025. Um and in that time, we gathered significant data. We gathered insights from 146 teachers, uh, 1,300 students. We conducted 75 classroom observations, had 12 focus groups. We interviewed school leaders and reviewed curriculum assessments and extensive uh, district data. Um, our aim was very straightforward. We were looking to identify strengths to um come up with opportunities for growth and provide actionable recommendations that were aligned with the district goals. Um and this all came out to be about a 250 page document that I'm sure you have extensively read

016word for word. The original the long version was about 250 pages. obviously lots of data to report and we've obviously condensed that into a much more um palatable 20 pages or so. Um so um again the work was really to start with strengths and opportunities to look at the resources that are currently being used how well they speak to each other um how well they align with evidence-based practices um and the science of reading um and I will just be very clear um to operationalize what we mean by the science of reading. It's a term that many people have heard, but there's a lot of misinformation, miscommunication. Um, it is a long-standing body of interdisciplinary research which helps us understand the literacy development of students from birth um all the way up through high school.

017Um, so we looked at uh the disciplinary practices both in the middle and high school as well as I covered K through five. Um, and we also looked at um how all of these systems of support um spoke to each other, aligned with each other, the usability, um how well the curriculum was coherent um and um how the amount of professional learning that was um happening for teachers and uh building leaders across the district. So I will um focus on the um I I covered some of this which is just the scope and sequence of how much went into this. Uh we were very careful to use uh tools that have a a a solid basis in OB in in the data. So um highly validated observational protocols um interview and focus groups protocols that

018um also have been you know aligned with evidence-based practices um and um extensively went through the data that the the district provided. Um so you can get a a clear sense of all that went into this and just how much data we were looking at. Um, and so you can you can see obviously that a project this extensive had many players and that's why we're so um appreciative of all of the time and energy and resources that everybody in the district um gave to us. So let me start with the um opportunities for um K through three, I'm sorry, K through five. um lots of strengths obviously in that the district has really focused concerted efforts and investment in structured literacy and what I mean by structured literacy or evidence-based practices that align with the

019science of reading. The district has um really um made significant uh progress in adopting foundational literacy skills K through two that really help students grow in word recognition. um they're using foundations, they're using Heggerty, they're investing in lots of decodable texts. Teachers um are very aware of the processes and procedures that go with foundations. And he what was amazing to me is I would go into a kindergarten classroom and um what was happening in one classroom was very similar to what was happening in the class down the hall. So there's a lot of um lot of lot of uh solid uh instruction happening um across district and across um classrooms. um extensively that came out of our case uh our focus groups and our interviews with teachers is the amount of um support that they

020got not just in district leadership and building leadership but how responsive it is to their um to their requests for ongoing development for um materials and resources that they needed. This is clearly a district that has a very strong professional culture. um people really coming um every day to their building um for the best interest of students and um very appreciative of the leadership that um is is responsive and supportive in their work. Um lots and lots of instructional resources. This is a district that people very much felt if I need this, I know who to go to and um those response th those requests are um met um with uh they're welcomed and they're uh they're almost always met. Um so in terms of opportunity to growth and I will note that much of

021what we um recommended in the report um has already started to gain traction. So it's really exciting to see something that is you know months of data and months of um of work really um start to to take place. Um and it starts with our first uh recommendation which is developing data-informed instructional practices using um using validated assessment measures. Um so previously the district was using things like the running running running records and fontis and panel running records which um as o over some significant research have um proven to be not as robust nor rigorous as um once thought to be. Um so the district has already acted on our recommendation of aligning assessments with ones that are validated. Um they're already starting to put dibbles into place which is a um longterm um or

022has been around for a while very very rigorous very clear gives lots of data as a screener on where students are and what's nice about it is it's a K through8 resource so we um get lots of information about students across the longitudinal um educational career. Um, another uh significant um uh recommendation which is um we're starting to have these conversations are is really making sure that the instructional materials are high quality instructional materials that are aligned with research-based practices. Um foundational materials certainly are there. Um there's some growth that is possible in some of the materials around language comprehension um which is students ability to make sense of written language and spoken language as well as um the elevation of writing and grammar instruction um and fluency routines. And then the last uh significant

023recommendation that um we see as ongoing work and the district certainly has um begun this and continuing it um as in forward planning is job embedded professional learning around the science of reading. Um many people have taken coursework or they've done certifications in the science of reading or and are wanting to really connect it to their instructional materials. So um continuing the growth of um professional learning particularly aligning with the literacy coaches who and instructional coaches um who are already um a part of the uh school buildings and such. So I will hand it to uh Dr. Morrison for the middle and high school report. >> Yeah, thanks. I want to add to just that quick just around the strength of also your literacy coaches are just really fabulous and the fact that you have

024such great coaches I think is also a big strength that we you know wasn't up there but is as a really powerful component to that K actually K12 piece. All right, John J. Middle School strengths and opportunities. Um first just let's talk um about the strengths the staff. We had, you know, we had a survey for the staff and um we also did focus groups and across all of the surveys and the focus groups, your staff was just really reported how collaborative they are. They're supportive of each other. Very experienced. You have a lot of veteran educators. Uh I was surprised every time I did a focus group how, oh, I have 27 years of experience or 20 years of experience. Now, I know that also means that you have a lot of educators who

025are probably ready for retirement, but it was really impressive how many veteran educators you have and how knowledgeable they really are around education. Um, they, you know, spoke just intelligently about their field of expertise and it just was a really strong professional culture. Uh, and which also said they were really excited about the coming PLC's because that actually adds to their professional culture. Um, and you can tell when people are excited about professional learning communities, that means that they already have a collaborative sense because a lot of places I have been, that's not always the case. And so, they're really ready and primed for that work. Uh, at the middle school, we also saw a lot of strategic scaffolding for reading and writing. And what that scaffolding means is additional support to make sure students

026can um do really well in their reading and writing work. So, for example, we saw graphic organizers and sentence stems and um what I writing tolearn activities, you know, a few of those. Uh and it was I would say it wasn't like consistent across all of the classrooms, but it was pretty prevalent across quite a few. Um and so we saw some really strong scaffolding um in those classrooms. um also saw some really bright spots in some classrooms around vocabulary development. Again, not in every classroom, but there were some really strong classrooms now trying to integrate vocabulary development. So, for example, they had some word walls that were starting to go up. And I saw a lesson where it was like they were on their hundth word inter like the hundth word was already up

027and they were doing a review of the words that they were engaged in and students were really like really engaged in this activity understanding what these words meant and they were really curious and really excited about them and so that's really exciting to see is this vocabulary engagement that students were connected to. So, a lot of use of textbased work and that's one of the things we're really looking for when we go to do a literacy audit. Um, we looked at um English language arts, social studies and science classrooms at the middle schools and high schools for this reason. Those are very text depend what I call text dependent disciplines where we're looking to make sure that they're using a lot of texts and have text rich conversations and textbased work and writing and so

028we saw a lot of text especially in English language arts and social studies. I would say science is where they probably need to bolster more of that textbased work and they were very candid about that. The teachers acknowledge that. They're like, "Yes, we would like to have more support in textbased work in science and and um they acknowledge that and we're wanting that support um especially in materials that would help them do that. Um, but we saw a lot of tech sets and they've done a lot of professional development work in especially in English language arts around helping them learn how to put together more text sets that help um bring their current materials more in line with evidence-based practices than they currently are which was a really positive thing that we saw them doing.

029Um and then also in social studies similarly that we saw a lot of the social studies classrooms having text sets also and a text set is where they have let's say three or four texts on the same content or theme so students can read multiple texts around the a similar idea. Um, oops, sorry. Positive um, students really talked about having positive teacher feedback around their writing, strong teacher modeling around their writing and strong writing support. And so they were really students reported that in the survey and I saw quite a few examples of that in observations where there were some really strong lessons around writing where a teacher was doing a model of their own writing and then they were asking students to go replicate that in their own writing during a writing workshop. So

030some opportunities to just really enhance you know work in the classrooms. The first is to prioritize inclusive access to tier one universal instruction for students with disabilities. So one of the thing and this comes also from your data. So there is some specific data where some of your students with disabilities are not performing at the same level as your you know general student population. And I think one of the reasons that could be is because sometimes there might be grouped more together in some of your regular education courses where they could be dispersed more across classrooms. And so what's happening I think and like I said this was just from two days of observations. So please like take that with a grain of salt, right? Um and have more conversations about this with your teams.

031But one of the things I would recommend is making sure that they're spread out so they can have more stronger peer-to-peer contact and more heterogeneous groupings because what's really strong for students with disabilities is to have really strong peer-to-peer models. And so we want to make sure that they're in classrooms where they get to have that access. And so really making sure that they have access to universal instruction in the regular education classroom should be priority number one. And so just making sure that that's you know that's you know just an effort that we're focusing on. And again similar to K3 or K5 the the current materials do not align to high quality evidence-based practices. Um they are working really hard to make them better. So I want to acknowledge that they've done a lot

032of work to do that to really bring them you know forward with the textbased work but um I would say the next step after K5 adoption of new materials would be to get 68 into adoption of new materials that would be integrating reading and writing so that they are connected instead of separate units of study and that they are also including the increase of academically productive talk. That was one thing that was missing across many of the classrooms was studentto student discussion. Um, also extended writing tasks and that means multi-paragraph writings and I'm not talking like oh the five paragraph essay up but I'm like multiparagraph tasks where students are writing every week multiparagraphs. Um, and then again that you'll have materials that already have your text sets built. One of the most challenging things

033for teachers to do that takes up most of their time is finding text sets. And so if you can take that burden away from teachers, you will free them up more time to really spend on the what I call the art of teaching and the science of teaching, which is bringing in the really the strong instructional practices and not having to find the texts. the finding the text is really time consuming and that's why we have curriculum companies that do that work for us so we don't have to do it. Um and then the final recommendation is around just again aligning content and professional development. A lot of educators were really saying we want professional development that aligns to our content area specifically. So social studies teachers want professional development around social studies. Science teachers

034want professional development in disciplinary literacy and science. They're like, "We want to know how to bring how to work with complex texts in our classroom because we don't know how to do it." And so, we want more help doing that in our class and not um not having all of us in the same room at the same time. All right. John J. High School. Again, similar. You know, I'll be honest. the strengths and um opportunities were very similar for the middle school and the high school um which is actually I think a real positive. It shows a lot of coherence from the middle school to the high school that they were very similar. So again very supportive instructional environment really deep teacher expertise like amazing teachers. They love your kids. They love the students. They

035love what they do. They're super passionate about their jobs and and their careers. And they love making teaching relevant for kids. I heard that over and over and over that they want to make teaching relevant for students and they want students to be passionate about learning and the world around them that they want them to be, you know, educated citizens so that they can go out and be really thoughtful when they go out into the world. Saw also a lot of integrated use of complex content aligned text which is great and that's again something that we was really excited to see. Students are engaged in textbased work and they're also writing to sources which means they're using textbased evidence in the writing that they are doing which is a really important thing that we want

036to see students doing. Also saw a lot of scaffolded support for writing. So a lot of graphic organizers um an text based annotations. So annotations were also something that students are expected to do. every time they engage in a text, they're expected to do some sort of annotations, which marking up the text, um, writing in the margins, um, and you have a really strong foundation in advanced placement coursework. So, what I did notice when I was doing observations is that the AP courses had what I would call higher levels of instruction. That the instruction was elevated. Sorry, I used my hand so I just end up hitting the microphone. the instruction was really elevated in the AP courses and I think that comes from having some external expectations around AP exams, right? We know what

037has to be on the AP exams. We have AP rubrics and so we have these expectations that we know students have to meet. And so I think that's probably why there's sort of some elevated instruction there because other other classrooms don't have necessarily these external expectations beside I mean we have standards yes but there's not sometimes this extra pull a little bit um to raise that bar in that space. So that then leads us to the um opportunities for growth. And because I just talked about that one, I want to talk about um number two first. And that's around consider structuring programming to elevate instructional quality and rigor using um some possible external um programs. So like consider bringing AP down to 9th and 10th grade. um consider IB programs that um have external expectations.

038Um, I've taught in the IB program a lot in the past and it it's because you have the external like papers that you have to send off to be assessed somewhere else that and you have all these external expectations from the IB board um that you know you have to reach these particular levels and students really rise to those challenges and you have such talented children and students like they are primed and ready for some extra rigor. Um cuz I also noticed that some students they are very compliant, right? They're like you have the nicest kids I've ever seen. Like they are so they're so nice. They were like studiously taking notes. They are happy. They are respectful. Um even if instruction wasn't super exciting, they were like doing the work right there. they're in

039it. They're ready. So, they are primed and ready for some really engaging engaging and rigorous work. Um, even your students with disabilities, I think that's a, you know, some people are wondering, well, are they ready? They need that. They actually need that extra challenge and they need that extra because that's going to bring up their scores. That's going to bring them up to that next level by giving them grade level expectations and grade level work. Uh so that kind of addresses that number five as well that they're ready for some raised expectations. They'll leverage student compliance to raise their expectations. Um the district is already addressing number one working on creating priority standards and curriculum mapping. So I'm not going to address that because I'm sure Dr. Drake will already talk about that later. Um

040and then again adopting possible high-quality instructional materials. 912 would also address the issue of um having equal, you know, really having some equity for students so that you know that every 9th grader is having a similar experience across 9th grade. And that doesn't mean they have to have the same experience in like in it doesn't have to feel the same in every classroom, but I but the assessments should be similar. The assessment should be the same for every for every unit of study. The assessment should be the same. Um and some of the main formative tasks should be the same and the expectations around the assessment should be the same. So we know that they're all receiving the same standards and expectations. Um so there are two similarly to the middle school two things that

041we would like to elevate for students at the high school increase the amount of academically productive talk. Um students reported that most of the time it was mostly the student talking or mostly the or sorry mostly the teacher talking or mostly the teacher talking and a few students. So our goal would be to see mostly the students talking and sometimes the teacher talking, right? Still want teacher talk. Teacher lecture is still fine, totally fine, but we'd still like to see most of the times the students doing most of the work because the person doing the talking is doing the thinking. And so we just like to see that more students are doing the talking and engagement in a classroom. And number six is to invest in some disciplinary literacy professional learning which would be specific

042again to each discipline. So, social studies teachers getting some really discipline specific social studies professional development and science teachers asked again for some very specific science professional development to support how do I help my students access those complex texts in my classroom because I'm not really sure how to do it necessarily because it's not something that we were taught in our, you know, undergraduate or graduate courses. It's not something that usually comes up. Um, and so we would like some support in that space. All right. Overall districtwide opportunities really is just this shared vision, just a shared K12 vision for literacy instruction. Like what do we want it to look like? What do you want to say? How do we define the science of reading as our district? How do we find literacy? You know,

043what do we want to say it? you know, how much talk do we want to see in classrooms? How much writing do we want to see in classrooms? Those sorts of things. Um shifting from an RTI model to an MTSS model, which I know um um you'll they're going to address they've already started this work. So, you've already hired somebody to be the new MTSS coordinator and that position has already been in place. So, Dr. Blanch and Dr. Drake will already I think talk about this after um we've presented. Um so we're really excited that you're kind of moving into um to that space. Um and that then goes into the next part just really clear roles around that. You've already moved into the screening with the new assessment protocols and that includes new assessments

044for um 912 with NWA. You're piloting NWA at 912 which is really going to be helpful. So that we making sure that those students um also get stra screen screened and are not falling through the cracks there as well. Really excited about your PLC work. Um that was one of the first conversations I had I think coming here and that I was really excited to hear about that. That's a key think to the work of MTSS. When you can have those conversations in PLC groups, those data informed conversations when you're talking about student data in your PLC's, that's a huge key to having a strong MTSS system, framework, all of that work together and because it comes down to the really having teachers talking about students and student work at the teacher level. Uh, and

045then expand structured collaboration time across schools. This includes PLC's but it includes more dayong or half day. It doesn't have to be day long but more halfday time. Teachers were really asking for more professional development collaboration time to do some vertical work as well. Um and that leads into kind of our next steps. What our next steps and recommendations. And really this is stuff you've already started. you've already started to build your MTSS leadership team. Um that's something that um Dr. Blanch is like, "Yep, we're on it. We're ready to go." And developing that coherent assessment system, right? Already there. Again, already shifting oversight to curriculum instruction instead of into the special education department, which is because this is a it's a general educa. MTSS is around general education and that's where it should be.

046and then adopting that data-driven instructional model and then just sustaining and progress monitoring along the way. Once you get these systems up and running, then it's just about progress monitoring. So, finding some tools. Um, New York has a really great MTSI MTSSI framework that we recommended um the team look at and I think they've already probably dug right into that. I'm guessing. Yeah. Like Julia's like, "Yes, we've really looked at that. It's a really great model. Um I've seen a lot of other states models and this one is really really strong and so um really excited to have you guys dig into that. So there's the MTSS recommendation kind of pathway and then there's this review and adoption of high quality instructional materials. So basically the first step in that is just getting your review

047team together and then it's defining some selection criteria. So really making sure you know what do we value as a district? What do we want in our materials? Um you have a lot of your foundational materials already purchased. So this would be around like that language comprehension work. What do we want the other other half of our materials to look like? And then engage in a rigorous review process. Go visit some schools that have these materials in place. We don't really recommend piloting because that's a me like not much really comes of pilots to be honest with you because half the people will like and they're so short like half the people like them half the people don't. I recommend just going and seeing it in action and you'll you'll you'll know if you like

048them or not. Um and then >> can I interrupt that? >> Yeah. And I will say I've worked with several Westchester districts who are in similar places and that's their approach is um not piloting but having conversations and Boseies are great for tapping into these other who's adopted what and um so that's an that's an ongoing conversation to have. >> Yeah. Yeah. And then work your way from K5 to 68 and to the 912. So work your you know from so then by the time you've got students coming up to the to 912 that they are you know kind of they've had then these experiences by the time they get up to high school. Um and then it's again just sustaining implementation. It's that progress monitoring having some rubrics to look at seeing how you're

049doing and just continuous progress monitoring. Um again we just really thank you for this opportunity to support your district in this process. Um we're just you have such first of all you have such an amazing district. You're already really successful. Your student scores are right already really really strong but we we know like with this great work you've already started it's going to be really great for your students and for your educators. Um they're just primed and ready and excited about this work. So thank you for allowing us to to be here and work with you. >> Thanks. And if it's all right, I'll just ask uh Julia to go ahead and any wonders you want to share out now. I know like the team was saying before, we had, you know, training already earlier

050this week with all of our interventionist on our dibbles. And >> that's right. I'm glad you uh shouted them out. They deserve some recognition. >> Yes. In fact, so this week we uh have dibbles training happening. Next week, NWA training happening. Our interventionists and our coaches are the pioneers there. So, they're going to be doing the first administration for all the students K8 and Dibbles and K through 12 at the high school. Uh or uh we have some specific grades highlighted for the high school. Um and uh we also met today with um an individual from the University of Albany who's an MTSSI expert who is helping our more uh central team plan our uh work for the course of this year. We've established a literacy leadership team that's going to meet as well as

051a core working team um throughout the course of the year. Uh same with MTSS. Um Maggie is hard at work. Um and u and I am supporting her as we go through this process and build some of these systems. Um and and we really are hitting the ground running. We so we've changed the assess assessment um models which um is is going to have implications for how we do group our students how we offer support um so we're planning for all those eventualities as we revise the entire MTSS RTI plan into an MTSSI plan um so there are a lot of balls in the air at the same time but it's all good work um our professional learning communities as they said are working on identifying the priority standards and slowly working our way through

052all the four questions of a PLC where we're creating assessments to progress monitor on a regular basis, having conversations about the students and the progress they're making. Um, and so it's it is a lot of change, but it's exciting change to be on the cusp of and also uh in recognition of the efforts that we've already been making over the course of the years since I've got here and also prior when we realized certain adjustments had to be made. Um, so I really do want to want to thank um both Christa and Molly and also my my whole team of instructional uh coaches and principles and teachers. Um, so it's a it's a full community effort to make sure we give you guys the best education possible which is our job. So >> and and

053Julia with that and I and I know both Christa and Molly mentioned the professional learning community work. So just a step to the side there for a moment. Julia mentioned kind of this idea about these questions. Um if you look at the work from Rick Deour and and which has continued forth and even McDig's work on uh understanding by design very similar this idea about what do we want our kids to know and be able to do that's where we're starting with that's the mapping that they're talking about cuz the reality is the list and the length and the amount of standards that are out there. There's no possible way that you could complete that all within it be K through 25 kind of a thing. It' be that long. So what are the must

054haves priorities? So that's what the team is working on. Then the next question leads into this idea about um how do we know that they know those priority standards? Great. So this is what we want. How do we know? So that's the piece that this is a system that's being put in place. Not just a program here or program there. It's a structure. It's a system to drive K through 12 through. And then the idea after that is okay. So then based upon that, how do we support students in this? This is our learning plan that we need to think about. Some students will go ahead and need maybe some additional support. Other students might need extensions into learning experience. I think Christa was talking about that a little bit. So that framework is what

055is really most powerful and what drives that are the professionals that we have. So the piece that we are exploring there you look at our empowerment plan we'll be talking about a little bit later. For example, the middle years program IB is being explored at the middle school level. That is an instructional framework. They will ask the same things. What do you want kids to be able to do? And then how do we understand that? And instructionally, here's the framework talking about. So it's interdisciplinary, it's inquirybased, it's heavy literacy based. So you're looking at that's the instructional framework and you take that and it can be students who need extensions or interventions. So that instructional framework is where we're looking at. We have it in future steps to look at the elementary as well as

056potentially at the high school. And again, that's the same thing that we would be asking for all of our K through2 schools. So all the elements that Julie mentioned, our colleagues here mentioned today are in support of that very basic rudimentary structure of those four driving questions. And so that is the piece where we look at even the board. Thank you for your flexibility. This year we were able to put a couple more days in there for professional learning time. We wish you'd have a ton more. It's at least a step in the right direction. And then at the high school with this schedule change that block schedule will lead immensely to help us with projectbased learning with inquiry based learning for students to get after this writing across the content areas. And then by

057the way they have an opportunity every day for professional learning time that's built in to that calendar. So think the systems as we go through this and if there's any wonderings, hey, can you tell me how that ties in or if Julia ties in, please ask it because it has to or it's probably not something we should be doing. So everything that hope you heard today and that will be tying forth when we'll be moving into this work. Um so just as we go ahead and forward, think systems and again everything mentioned here some of the things that already are a foot. We're just starting with our MTSS work. Um, and Julie had the foresight last year of getting this individual from the state of Alwin, who was basically training across the entire state on

058the docket here to be with us, not just today, but a number of times throughout the school year working with this team. >> Dr. What's that? >> Dr. Steve Repellia. >> Yes. Thank you. >> Yeah. And so you've got it lined out from last year. So, which is which is perfect. So, >> any wonderings that I can ask or our colleagues can answer and things like that you may have. >> Yeah. So can you clarify um I know previously we had as web as a benchmark is NWA replacing that as the benchmark and dibbles is replacing running records or foundel okay and how often are students um for parents sake yeah >> receiving those assessments >> so the NWA is going to be done three times a year like as web was okay >> dibbles

059will be done during the benchmarking periods as well but can also be used for progress monitoring >> a little more often >> limitlessly if you need to both produce really great reports that are easy to understand and they're also a little bit more systematized. So like yesterday when we were in a full day dibbles training with the interventionists, we're also teaching them the technology that they can use to immediately upload the results of the student assessments to a database that anybody could access and you can monitor their progress over time. >> Will parents have access to that database? >> So we're going to be really cautious about this first because we are building a plane while we're flying it. So, I don't want to cause like unnecessary alarm or or give up a report and

060not have a full answer for exactly how we're responding to everything that it shows because we're also restructuring our entire like intervention system. >> So, there's an element of we need to get used to how to administer them, how to read the reports, what to do with them, and how to respond. We need to build those systems in place and then have a full like a full a clear well fleshed out response to parents when they say, "Okay, so now what what are you doing to do this?" And I anticipate that will come, but it's not going to come immediately because we're not there yet. >> As a parent who asked for the Ames Webb report repeatedly, but it wasn't it's not really voluntarily um provided in our district. I would love to see a

061point where parents can see those results uh three times a year like the teachers do. um they tend to see it when their kid hits a problem, but they don't see it otherwise or even really know. So, I'd love I know that those systems >> we will get there. >> I know. I appreciate it. >> Just looking forward to that. >> No, I I think your point is is there is that the reality is is that the NWA piece there, they're recommending with us and say hold a little bit till you figure it out. Absolutely. And then the next year we do that and most often like backpack through IC is most typically >> I was just going to say that we have that system already set up and they have easy parent reports that

062are >> they do they do and honestly when we spent some time yesterday it identified as dibbles again some it was out of University of Oregon for probably 25 years ago I think it is now so um but you know vendors pick it up so this is called MClass so now they've taken it to a whole different level so then we'll be able to have reports out of that then we'll be able to connect and talk over to IC and be ultimately up on that spot. So, it's being built there, designed it. It will definitely get there. And then, frankly, this year will probably be for some students or families who maybe we need to help support a little bit. That'll be a test for us and working with a a parent and saying, "Hey,

063can we look at this together?" So, that'll be almost like a trial one for us. So, then next time around, we can go and said it's it's for everybody. And this piece will be actually testing some of this along with some of our parents just as we learn it. and how can we share that out with some of those families who are going to need to see it right off the bat because we're supporting kids at a different level. >> And is Ames Web being used to flag for intervention until we're fully on boarded or is No. So it's we're using >> right this is part of the reason I'm asking for some like uh patience on people's behalf because >> she's not right. We've pulled the public it's my public service announcement to um

064because we're really committed to this change but it's enormous and absolutely um we've now pulled out Ames Webb and which is the core of our current RTI plan which requires that we rewrite and reestablish benchmarks. Um and it will ultimately NWA will ultimately help us establish those guidelines. Um but I also want to clarify that right now we're training the interventionists to go first. Um, so we haven't even trained the teachers and we've only given the interventions one day, the next day is tomorrow. So like and then we're teaching them first how to use it and then how to review the reports and then how to determine if growth has been made and all those things I've sequenced throughout the course of the year to correspond with the existing benchmarks. So it is a little

065bit of time but we will get there and it'll be great. Very excited. Thank you. And when you were speaking there too, it made me think back to the intervention yesterday cuz they're thinking ahead already >> and they were seeing that where they would be able to go with that tool to help the children, to help the family. So they're seeing it as well too and it's just a matter of kind of us getting them enough time to get up to speed. So they're they're right on path with what we're talking about here for sure. >> That was going to be my question is how are the teachers feeling about all of these? >> Yeah, it was great. I bumped into a teacher today. I was at one of the elementary schools. Oh, that was

066great. Yesterday's really helpful. I can see how the technology is going to actually save me frankly some some time and how we can quickly ascertain where a student may or may not be. And then the idea of being a universal screener with a strong one like that, we're going to grab some students that we may not have captured before. And so they felt very confident about that as well too. So it was nice cuz the trainers yesterday, as Julia said before, that they they actually said, "Act like a kid now. Go ahead. You got a kid in there. I'm going to I'm going to pretend I'm reading now. You score this." and so they got some chance to do that. So, um they're there and then we'll continue that work uh with with the Dibbles

067partnership there. So, um I I couldn't have been more pleased with our faculty yesterday. I mean, like like this team said, we've got some really veteran teachers and some new teachers. Everybody there though was jazzed and ready to go for sure. And like Julia said, they're going to be the first ones to minister cuz all kids get this. >> Every single child in all, let's say, of our K through five classrooms are going to get this to start. these teachers have to do it first because we did not have the option to wait. So they're taking the charge, they're going to do it and then between here and there they're going to try to turn key that back to their teacher colleagues. So then we're shooting for midyear. Now our teachers now can start doing

068that cuz that's the a critical piece and please jump in Molly you guys anytime that having teachers sit and listen to students read and understand ac literacy is powerful. So the end result is not to have interventionists do this. they're going to be kind of that lifting the rocket off to get us started and then it'll shift to teachers who will be the ones who will doing this monitoring this universal screening across the way. So that that's a key part say I'm sorry I'm pleased to say we're expanding it to the high school and the the high school interventionists were seeking this as well. So, we're we're going to be um using it in ELA grades 9 through 11 in math and algebra, geometry, and algebra 2 as a screener to see how students at

069the high school level are doing. So, >> and I'm glad you mentioned that, Julie, because that's that NWA we were speaking about before and that's a computer adapted assessment. So, as a child is doing well, that will adapt to their understanding. If maybe they're needing a little bit of reinforcement, that they may drop to a spot. So, the ability for that to be a computer adaptive assessment significantly different than the regions. No opinion there. Uh but it does allow our teachers to get much more targeted information of where a child is. Same thing like Julie said, it does allow for us to track students growth across the way and and again back to families will have that understanding that growth and quite honestly and his colleagues will have that same feedback as a student. They'll

070understand here's where I am, here's where I need to go, here's what I'm going to work with a teacher on to get from A to B. I mean, so yes, I know we're talking about educators and families and ultimately the students need to be understanding where their strengths are and where their opportunities are next. So they'll be able to get that. >> I was just going to say I think u Dr. Drake the the approach here both in terms of how you're implementing this and also the choice to not go with pilots really demonstrates a sense of urgency that I really appreciate and I'm really grateful for. Um, and so, uh, I heard three things that really sort of stood out to me. I heard, you know, the curriculum alignment and sort of the structure,

071which we know we're working on the curriculum mapping and we know that that takes time. That's a significant amount of work. I heard highquality materials and I heard focus on writing and so I just wanted to take a moment to ask, we know the work that's under that's underway in terms of the curriculum mapping. wanted to understand from your perspective uh what work can be done if any in the short term to start getting some more of those high quality uh materials in the hands of teachers and to start to strengthen some of the writing um pieces. So I just wanted to have a little bit more context around those two pieces. >> Sure. I mean, I I can start and then turn it over to you guys, but um some of the investments that

072we've already made in things like decodable text and the primary grades are are one really smart step in that direction. And so just becoming even more effective in our usage of them, like more regularly integrating their them and as part of our practice is one example. Um, and I think that our attention on MTSS and like fostering a very strong tier one instructional program in that initiative as well is going to have um benefits. So, as we're thinking about and you'll hear more about this in a future meeting, but structuring the MTSS revisions that we're going to do across the year, we're trying to marry them with the objectives of both this audit and the PCG audit. and both all of them talk about the quality of the tier one instructional materials. So everything will

073be very like closely monitored, but we we did put a lot of smart things in place over at least since I've been here that I know will continue to the best of our ability um as far as work with text sets. Um that was another thing um that we had worked on last year specifically. Vocabulary was a a real strong focus. So the schools are going to be establishing another focus for the year kind of in line for their work with me in line with the core tenants of instructional like practices and literacy and we're going to keep working on that in that direction as we do all of these things. But I don't know if you >> and the the thing that I would add is also that um I the sense of urgency

074around selecting highquality instructional materials. This is a process that really can happen over the course of one academic year. So, you can I mean, I'm not going to go into the budgeting issues. That's for you guys to figure out. Um, but lots of districts, they are aware of, you know, let let's review what we've got, look at what we what the data are showing are areas of um that need more robustness in terms of materials. And it is something that um you know can be done relatively quickly. So, not necessarily for this academic year. There's conversations that have to happen before um but this isn't something that is like oh in 5 years we will have it's something that's >> yeah our goal is to have the it in place ideally in the elementary school

075in September of next year 26 >> and Julie I think with that that's your already um getting your team together y >> and identified to do that work and so more than likely starting winter time with those visits that Molly was talking about to other schools and and based upon uh things like the reading league and best practices in there. We've got a small number that we know we're going to look at >> and align with what we we as a personalize in the district we want to have and then we'll visit those and we'll be able to make uh the decision there and then start providing professional learning around that. So you're right, you've got us you poison ready and we're all ready to go. So well done Dr. Drake. >> Thank you. >>

076Great. >> I have a few more questions. >> Yeah. Yeah, sure. It's okay. Um uh one of the things that came up in the middle school was the access to tier one instruction and I think that particularly when you read the the longer report which is available to the public really dives into the ICT class structure. Can you explain for parents >> why the heterogeneous grouping meaning those kids with IEPs instead of being grouped into that one class sprinkled throughout the other classes is a better is it might be a better option for them. Um, yeah. >> I I think there's a lot of parents who are under the impression of if I get my kid in that class and they're going to get the help that they need, >> right? And Yeah. And I

077think and I get why people think that, right? That they because it's a support class like, oh, they get the benefits of that extra support. However, what's happening is is a lot of times um the access to grade level content goes down because then the focus will be on um the skills or specific skills that they need um which are usually below grade level. And so what we know from the research and I don't know if one of the great reports I like to share is the opportunity myth. It's written by the TNTP. Um it's a great read. But um one of the things we know about accelerating learning, if you have students who are work, you know, currently performing below grade level, the one thing you need to do to accelerate their learning is

078actually to have them working at grade level. And so that means you have to have them working at grade level. Even if they don't quite get there, they're stretching to get there. And most of the work around students for especially in literacy is to using stretch texts. That's one evidence-based practice that we need to be helping students work with texts that are above their level and helping them learn how to to attack them, work with them, dig into the difficulty of them, learn how to access the vocabulary, like learn all those adult strategies that we have that they have not yet really mastered, that they haven't become fluent with yet. And so those things that we do inherently um they don't realize that you have to do those like they don't realize that those happen

079in your brain. They think they happen by osmosis and that they just missed out on that that thing. They didn't get that magically. Uh and so that we have to really train students to do those things. But they also here's the thing they can still think at really high levels. These students can still be thinking at really high levels and they need peer mentors. And so their peers who are also thinking at super high levels, they need to hear how they talk about texts. They need to hear how they think about texts. They need to they need to see them writing about texts. And so the more they can see their their peers doing these things at these high levels, they those are models for them. And the more they see those models and hear

080those models, that elevates their performance. So that's why more heterogeneous heterogeneous grouping is more beneficial for students. >> And Dr. Nes, I um did you see any of that um issue at the elementary school level? No, I um I in my observations I was mostly looking at the uh when I was looking at tier 2 and tier three pull out support which um one of the nice things that is happening is there's a a real consistency in um the language that kids are particularly with word identification that kids are hearing in their general classroom and then the pull out. So those systems are speaking really nicely and um as school districts are trying to make changes, one thing that we have to be cognizant of is that um the consistency of teacher language, the consistency

081of the support programs all are aligned across those levels. >> Yeah, I asked that cuz I I I do believe our elementary schools have a similar system where we have one um we have one per grade level, one co-eing classroom where students with IEPs are grouped >> and there's a co-teer in there. >> Yes. And um I it it I the the MTSS conversations obviously are larger conversations and I think um one of the big uh things that is going to be an immediate change is your robustness of who are identified for um because of these screeners because of the the progress monitoring there's just going to be a lot more clarity around that to also guide teacher instructional decisions. I guess my my question is based on those results, are we planning to make

082any changes to the ICT structure at the middle school andor at the elementary school? Although it seemed to be not as much of a concern at the elementary school. >> Uh my understanding of the recommendation was not a critique of in instructional co- teaching as a practice or structure. It was simply the like the ratio. >> It was a ratio thing. The coaching co-eing is fabulous. Your co-eing was very effective. very effective. >> Yeah, the co-eing was very effective. And of course, we weren't even watching, right? We were not brought in to even watch that part of it. But um I it was fabulous co-eing. They were like some of the best I've seen actually. And that's >> one of the pieces started we had talked about before and I think you and Elise have

083been speaking about this is that elementary level in particular very strong and actually looking at professional development align with some of the recommendations for our secondary team >> to now get some go back and reinvest in that co teaching. >> We're on the same wavelength. Yeah. Goldour Rutherford formerly Goldour and Rutherford GNR um has worked for many years with the elementary school co-eing teams at refining their practice for integrated co-eing and in line with these recommendations we're trying to look for ways to expand that beyond elementary to come up to the secondary just to help with continued professional development in that area. And and also I think with your work over the last couple years and with the science team at the high school now looking at ninth grade preap bio for all that's again

084that's lifting that rigoractly that's that piece there. So and then how can we go and support our teachers in those cotton classrooms so they can help really have highly effective co-taught classrooms and a a more rigorous course. >> So that's where again all nth grade kids will be having preapp bio. >> So more about the ratio and raising the expectations in those courses. I would say helping also the content teacher know how to help with the scaffolding. That was one comment that came out in a lot of focus groups with you know your um teachers who are supporting students with disabilities that that was a request of them as well is like how do we make sure everybody's on the same page of what are those scaffolds look like? How do we make sure that

085when we are putting students in these in general education classes that all teachers know what the scaffolds are and things like that. So that's what I was talking about with discipline specific professional development. That's what um I was referring to is how do we help then content teachers in science know how to scaffold up so in a pre you know in that advanced bio class every kid can take it no matter no matter what and I would like to recognize the bio teachers of the high school also because they had this foresight they had this need they we worked together with my instructional coach for literacy to help them practice their skills and they spent time this summer exploring the scope of their work for this upcoming year um and ways to support all students

086accessing content specific vocabulary in ways that will be likely retained um so they're really committed to doing it and and we want the preap bio experience for all to be a really big success for everybody. So to be continued but I was excited that we were able to already start in this in this way. Um, so >> anybody >> I know you did >> uh did the survey uh and any of this process include parents? >> We did not at this time include parents? >> Can I ask why? Um we just decided um we just did not at this I mean you have such a um very involved parent population already um and um very I would say socioeconomically advantaged population that in other circumstances we pro I know that sounds I don't know how

087to say that that >> um >> well I I I will say I was able to communicate I've had some meetings with some concerned families since I arrived that I was able to message the concerns I had been receiving. >> Yes. So we did hear Yeah. >> Yeah. And that was in part what led to some of our objectives and as part of this audience that I had to try to create when we had PCG coming in for a full district >> audit day. We all did this participated. We were afraid of overloading parents on too many >> surveys and pieces there. Yeah, >> they were definitely surveyed. Um >> Yep. >> there. >> Yes. >> Um and do we plan to include parents when we go to adopt curriculum? It sounds like we're looking

088at K5 and a more accelerated time frame for that group. Um do we plan to include parent stakeholders in that decision? >> In what way? For what purpose? >> For the curriculum. >> For what purpose though? To just inform them or actually have them make decisions on what curricula? I I think um make sure that their voices are represented. I I guess backing up, I was a parent five years ago who asked for the board to look at literacy and to do a comprehensive. >> But you're also an educator, Caroline. >> I am, but we have lots of um bright people in our community. >> Sure. >> Um and I am curious. They spoke up five years ago and they've poured their hearts out at that podium for this change and I'm applauding our change.

089But I am curious how we incorporate um them as a stakeholder. Obviously not as an expert but as a stakeholder in our community um so that they can feel a part of this process because I I I do believe that they their voice has brought this about in a lot of ways. Um I don't know about the the voice piece and things like that honestly right wrong or different when I landed last August I was like okay we need to do this so I didn't I hadn't had an opportunity to listen to folks before this board was wonderful in supporting that initiative and this is where we started so certainly in any adoption like that would want to kind of bring parents along with the way with where we're going at um I would not

090suggest bring parents involved in the decision making of the curriculum that's for our educators to do I so I would Not suggesting we be bringing parents on to do that. >> Teachers will be. Yeah. >> Oh, absolutely. There I mean it's going to be teachers visiting schools as visiting their colleagues as having those conversations and it's going to be with the you know administrators going in and helping guidance that more than likely a partner will be coming in with us and saying okay here's what we know from our best research from a research lens of what we would suggest you look at and the ones we suggest you don't look at. Got it. And then that's where we go from from that perspective. And then the educators are the ones who will go look at.

091Again, as we determined, we're not going to be going out and doing piloting. They'll be talking to other practitioners right within our area that are actually implementing that work now and have been. And then out of that work, then what's the determination of of those teachers that will come forth more likely from the steering guiding committee that um Julie has set already. And I I'll add also that um in terms of adopting highquality instructional materials, there are some new resources out there by that are vetted by research teams, by science of reading organizations that are sort of the gold standard that districts all around the country are using as they make these decisions. So those they really are sort of a a compass to help you figure out what are our priorities, what are um

092the sort of the the the key the key elements that we want. Um so the s the process feels a little bit more grounded in something with some um less arbitrary. So, um, and those are all available like, uh, things like the reading league, those, um, to help that decision making process just be a little bit more anchored in, um, what we want. >> And also our job as board members, you know, is to oversee the budget to support the curriculum that is selected by um, our fantastic staff. So, in that role, we're elected by the parents and so we have that oversight. That's one of our duties is to make sure that you know appropriate materials are being selected by the appropriate people. So definitely you know our community has a role when they

093come to the voting booth in May. >> Did you have a fourth one on I wouldn't >> I was just going to kind of mimic what Lorraine was saying. I I think that you're feeling very passionate about this, but remember that's what drove you to become part of the board in the first place, right? And so you are fulfilling that need as a parent and you're fulfilling that need back to our community by bringing forth and the fact that we've listened and have implemented. I know you said you wanted to do this anyway, but it was a big part of why this happened was because so many people in our community came forward and said it. So that's why it's a representative democracy, right? like we are elected to try to help bring forth that

094change. >> I I guess maybe a broader question for board dialogue at a later point is, you know, what are we doing as a board to maybe be more responsive sooner to parent concerns and to ensure that we have highquality instructional materials as a board of ed and we're holding our folks accountable across all subject areas and we don't land ourselves here um with another subject matter down the road. >> That is a very fair question. Um, and I think that, you know, I think going back to what Dr. Blanch said in terms of systems, what I'm hearing is we're putting together the systems that are going to help us identify this sooner. But I couldn't agree with you more that a lot of what I'm reading here, I heard from parents um about the

095need for more rigor, about so many things. And so there there's definitely that validating factor for sure. Um but you know having said that I think um thinking from a systems perspective I think as not as an educator and not as an expert um gives me confidence that we're putting the right processes in place to make sure exactly that that doesn't happen again but I think it's a very fair question and I think um >> you know do we have a a schedule by which we review um or ensure review of each subject matter regularly or more regularly >> right and I think that That's part of the work for >> Yeah. And when you when you say we, I don't know if if that's the royal we or what that is, but >> but

096with the Wii, what I'm thinking about is um the fall we kind of will be looking at the knowledge and skills kind of pillar and we'll be looking at uh kind of a high level data oversight from there. So what percentage of our students are are finding success in this content, this content area? In this case, we'll be shifting that away from Ames web, which we did last year, and now we shifting to an NWA/Dibbles and where are they at with the literacy competency levels. Are they at or are they above or they below where they need to be? Uh we'll typically go ahead and also share out the mathematics scores on those different areas. So, that's where this board will have an opportunity to kind of look at there's that highlevel data set u

097and not certainly down to a classroom or student level nor I would be a building or instructional team that does that. So that is a part as the board we would certainly be looking at that element that is one of our goal bucket areas of knowledge and skills. So how do we know how they're doing in knowledge and skills? So that's when we look at that pillar and we start looking at what's the data set we want to see inside of there. As we know the regent is kind of going kind of maybe to that part side. So all the more reason where like Julia mentioned before now we have these NWBA pieces coming up at the high school that are broken out in different by content areas which now we have which we didn't

098have before we just had the region. So we'll have new hopefully better tools that will give the board and saying okay here's the expectations we have we've lined resources best support and in how we doing well just like the report and where are the next opportunities we can do better in and that's a piece that um be it here in literacy or be it in mathematics or sciences wherever it is I think it is an absolute critical role of the board to say okay let's look at and how can we help to go to the next step so that typically we'll do that in in the mid winter. It's been a little bit later because the regions are so slow to come. So hopefully um we'll have that we will have that once the regions

099come out, but then we'll put in our internal assessments inside of there as well too. We'll kind of give a profile of where students are, what percentage of kids are kind of at a tier one that we would identify and a tier two and a tier three and then typically identify what programs we have in there to support children who may need support in those other areas and stuff like that. So that'll kind of be where that data dialogue and then Kim and I were just working on the schedule a little bit earlier today. We'll more than likely have a little bit later in the year there's a process that we're bringing on the district called collaborative inquiry. It's how do we look at data results from student learning. So the board will be walking

100through like a little dry run of that a data set. So we're going to just do a dry run here and so say hey here's what our teachers are doing at a pretty consistent in-depth level but just so we can get a high level sense of what our colleagues are doing in the field. So that'll be a kind of an experience of that data level set. So do that. So >> thanks. >> Thank you. >> Anybody else? >> And thank you for your willingness to do this. >> Oh yes. No. And I I also want to mention the teachers too. I at least again I'm a little over 12 months. Who's coming? >> I know Kim says this feels like seven years. Many many teachers were like this is this is Yeah. So it was

101really it was cool. So that's why I think our colleagues here heard that and like oh this is great. We want to share our experiences of decades and decades across of what's working well. How can you help us be better teachers? I think that's all that all of us are saying how can we help our teachers to help our kids. So that was very evident just to say right off the bat that it wasn't like this was a hard push like oh this is great. I'm looking forward to talking and sharing my experiences and how we can help our kids. So yeah it was good. >> Well thank you so much ladies. I really appreciate being here tonight for us. looking forward to talking soon. >> Can I can I jump in first? >> Absolutely.

102>> Thank you. Um I just want to like like highlight a few things that I like saw. Uh I do appreciate like as a student being able to know like where I'm at in the report and being able to see that myself. Uh and I do think it's be beneficial for people like and students to know where they're at. Um, I also appreciate like like bringing in AP for like the lower um grade levels because I do think that people will rise when they're like given the chance to rise at um like freshman sophomore year and I really do think that's going to be effective. Um something that I've seen uh that you're mentioning as a strength is the vocab use. Uh personally in eighth grade I had there was a large focus on that

103but in sixth seven freshman sophomore year um I haven't touched on vocab once with any of my teachers. So I do think that there should be more of a focus for that in classes um because I do think it's important to to have and when I was taught that in eighth grade people did appreciate like learning all this new stuff and it was like a giant focus of it but I haven't really had that since. >> It was just eighth it was the eighth grade classes that it was in. Um, and I I had a question. Uh, is there anything you notice about like being taught grammar and sentence structure? Because I recently went to my SAT tutor and I didn't I wasn't taught any of this stuff. Um, and they were frankly surprised and

104I haven't really been taught grammar or sentence structure since elementary school. Yeah, I would say the current u materials that you have for middle school would not um it would not be a strength of those particular materials for grammar and language instruction. And so that's why we would definitely recommend getting a new set of materials. It should be grammar. What we would recommend getting is something that teaches grammar in context. >> So not something that teaches like don't want to see worksheets. I don't want you doing >> diagram >> drills or never diagram a sentence. I was a bad teacher at one point in time and made students do that. Poor Lucas reminds me on Facebook regularly. Um and but something that when you're doing a lot of writing so this is why go back

105sorry to your question about extended writing at work lots of textbased writing tasks. So, every time you're revising in your writing, there should be also some identification from an educator as to what are those things that my students are not doing well at. Let's say it's semicolons. Okay. Okay. I was usually as a high school teacher, I was like, "Okay, we're not really doing great at semicolons. I'm going to teach them the rules for semicolons right now. We are going to make sure everybody gets the a mini lesson in semicolons. We are going to practice semicolons. they're going to go back and revise this particular essay for and we're all going to work on our semicolons at this point in time and then I'm going to look at the next draft. What is it we're

106going to So it could we could maybe some students are working on five things. I would have what I call a error journal or that they're tracking like okay you you need to work on these five things. You're working on these five things. when you turn in something, I want to make sure that your there, there, and theirs are all perfect because those are the things that you're not doing very well at, right? So, yes, it should be emphasized on a regular basis. Every time you do a major writing task, but not your write, what I would call writing to learn tasks where you're just doing a quick writing class, don't care about your grammar and instruction and all that. But every time you're doing a major writing task, there should be some also I

107would say grammar instruction at some point in time that goes with those extended writing tasks. So yes, we would like to see some when you're looking at materials that should be a priority I would recommend is finding materials that prioritize grammar in context. And yeah, it was there was uh but I was only there two days. So, it's also hard for me to talk about a theme when I was only there for two days to see if it's missing um to be honest with you. So, that's why it didn't surface. But, >> well, and I'll just I'll just add that um it's not just something that we want in 6 through 12. Um what you're talking about you're um in the field of reading research we call syntax and semantics. Most of us just know

108it as so quote grammar. Um but um some of the high-quality instructional materials that we would want at the K through five will cover general sentence structure and that syntax and semantics as early as you know kindergarten and first grade. >> All right. Thank you cuz I I mean personally I wasn't taught a semicolon colon apostrophe ever at at in Katona and I do think that's a >> important part of writing. Um, and I think everyone should know that well before I enter middle school, honestly. Um, but do you like recommend like making sure that all those lessons will be taught to every student even if they're even if like 80% of the class understands it, the other 20%. >> You would have a Yeah, you would have a scope and sequence. So, when you're

109doing your priority standards, right, you would then also have like your curriculum map and your curriculum map would have a scope and sequence of when all these things are taught. even if 20% of you know like even if they all don't know it then I'm like okay let's make sure we have >> yeah ironically the elementary principles and I uh worked on that last year so sorry but I'm going to do exclamation point so great to have you on the >> Oh I'm really glad that you shared that thank you one other thing you're touching on is something that I think is valuable that we have and it doesn't mean it's the be all and end Well, but we currently have a a a program that's consistent K8 and that continuity um is valuable. So,

110as we're thinking about high quality instructional materials, if we start at elementary, I'm always going to be keeping an eye out for that further extension. And if we can keep some kind of through line, I think that would be probably more effective than having three separate um agreed. >> Thank you. I appreciate it. >> Thank you again, ladies. >> Thanks very much. >> Thanks. So, we're going to go ahead and shift if that's okay, just over to a brief update um related to PCG report. Um so, you and I will kind of go walk through this a little bit, but certainly you will see some of these items will be similar to the areas that we just heard on our literacy report. Some of the things will already be going ahead in action in here.

111So I think on the next slide you'll go ahead and you'll see the graphic uh that the board was introduced last year when PCG came forth with their report roughly in June. And so these were those uh six buckets that they had identified of kind of this idea about effectiveness domains in there. And so on the next slide we'll go ahead and we've got just some highlights here. So he believes so now, you know, kind of go back and forth as you already heard from the literacy piece. The MTSS ownership has shifted over to the curriculum instruction office and then Eliss has already started some of the work on just IEP development. We have some of those areas identified and scheduled out. Um, one of the things the bullet there, we're not going to read

112every single one of these, but the UDL basically understand universal design for learning. There's elements there are very similar same questions start out with the PLC what don't kids know be able to do and how do they know it and then what are we going to do instructionally so basically that idea so they'll go hand in hand and so when we look at those areas again partnership with the learning office there we did mention Dibbles and NWA already this evening I did want to mention we've got Frank ISO here who is our director of counseling and so he is already well under foot with our 504 manual in training actually before school started he had uh gone ahead and identified a facilitating uh training for every administrator in the district to go ahead and get

113clarity on 504. Then he went and followed up with that with our assistant principles out in the field who will be actually leading those 504 meetings in the buildings and then has shifted that to faculty as well. So, so Frank is already on top of that one. Um and then I'm wondering Elise is that last one that was one of the pieces you kind of some of those program descriptions that we're looking at and then we'll go to the next slide. >> Sure. Just trying to have um a better understanding of what each of our programs on our continuum um offers and and who are the the targeted population that would be better served in those specific programs. >> Then we'll just shift to the next the human capital leadership. This is certainly a piece

114that was there. um and he believes that I actually had a touchstone today with PCG. We've now they're now taking kind of the step two with us on a workload analysis. And the idea there is really thinking about getting a clear understanding from faculty what how the um the life that they're living how many students you're working with, how many classes you're supporting and and getting a true sense of what that is and not just looking at numbers. And so if you look at ratios and numbers like oh you know we're doing pretty well which we certainly are and we though want to know are we effective with the deployment of those resources. So that's that work study being launched in that regard that the team is working through. Um, and then if you want

115to, we kind of hit that that third one there again over in the literacy piece about the G&R and thinking about professional development for those folks on those in, you know, those uh, those co-t talk classrooms in this area in second year grades. So, that's inside of there. Um, thinking about we have we'll have Northwell Health is going to come out in a few moments. They're going to be here in a couple of slides. one from a humano cap in development to support our teachers and helping to effectively use best practices in supporting students social emotional wellness along the way. A little bit later, we're going to see them again supporting our parents. And then um the last one here, again, I know you believe it's just the start of the school year. You you

116kind of uh disseminated everybody out to the schools to kind of be present. >> Sure. Right. um in trying to welcome our students back and supporting not only our administrators but our teaching staff as well to um transition our students back to the first day of school making sure that they all had a successful transition. Just a work in progress. It's only day two. >> Thanks. And then number two, just the systems and structures again aligning with our work on the 2030 plan. Um, again, similar to what Frank has been doing with the 504 kind of processes and documentation, Eagles also has a procedural manual that she has in started and initiated development there. So, we'll have a document there that we desire to have by the end of the school year. So parents can

117go ahead and see kind of general overarching processes that take place in the you know the cse process as well as internally a standard operation kind of guide and here's how we kind of go through internal meetings in structures and documentation tracking and things in that regard and then um thinking about the last one there again it wasn't just the um MTSS mover but RTI MTSS but our ENL students as well as with our universal prek program are now aligned with curriculum and instruction 504 oversight to the counseling out to the buildings and things. So that again as you heard recommended in literacy port as well into in there and then I think our last section here um I'll go ahead and can start us with the initial piece. We again touched base on this

118a little bit today with our partners with PCG on our our new uh exploration to the special education empowerment council. >> Right. So, we're really excited about this portion of the recommendation from PCG. Um, and we have been working developing the a letter that's going to go out to the community to let them know um of the process of the selection process of our parents. We've already established specific dates throughout the year. We're meeting five dates and times to be able to include uh student representative. Um, so we're really excited about this and we're on the way. >> Great. And right below that and then second we're going to have Northwell Health come up and help us understand a little bit more about some family training opportunities that we're going to be exploring and we'll

119be there. And then I think maybe the last one you please before we go ahead and see if there's questions from the board is just kind of some of the in-person convers. >> Right. So again aligned with some of the um recommendations from PCG and conversations that um the team has had with parents and their um desire to have some the option for in-person CSC meetings. Um since we're moving to our new location, we have a conference uh room there that we're hoping to welcome um families. Um, we're going to create a survey that's going to be going out soon, um, sometime this month to kind of get an idea of which which families would like to have in person meeting versus a Zoom meeting. We recognize that the Zoom option is still attractive for

120some, so we wanted to make sure they have the option. >> And then any questions from the board just as on the update here. >> So before I ask Northwell Health Team to come up, I just would ask us to think about kind of this update. We had this in June from PCG and then this is kind of what we've done. We'll do a similar one to do this like our literacy audit and we'll come a little bit down the road and saying okay what have we done? Oh teachers have been trained on this. Well we've administrated the first assessment of this piece. We've had three meetings with the guides shift. Oh look we've have we have teams out who have identified maybe two potential targets we're looking at for literacy program. So again we'll

121take those pieces and just kind of walk those down to kind of an update on the action plan that we've got going. So >> really really quickly, the special education empowerment council was something that came up a great deal last year and so you said that you're going to send out. How are we getting I know you said you're doing that but >> there were are we reaching back out directly to parents who had inquired about it like do we have plans for that and how many people are you going to invite into the council? So um working with PCG kind of in their processing was looking at we suggest that we we'll send it out to all parents again because some parents may never you know seen that first memo kind of getting involved

122on this side but the idea is there to have two represent two folks represent each one of the schools out on the field and we have leadership from our SAP organization will be there. So that's at that and we'll have some teachers in there and we're looking to have some children at the high school also be part of of the council >> and so with our timing there we're looking and we'll let folks know in the interest piece of we're going to send a survey out to everybody if you're interested and tell us why you're interested what maybe what skill set you may bring and maybe what program or programs your child or children may be involved in cuz PCG will be making the determination here so they can kind of create a kind of

123a leveled experience so it's not like oh great everybody's representing one portion of maybe a special education continuum. We would like to have a continual representation across all of those different programs. And we'll have elementary to secondary. And so as they would go through that piece, again, we're working with Septa. We'll grab some students at the high school. So then we're going to be looking at a 3 to 4:30 time slot so that we can have kids there is one of the pieces. We know when we have an evening piece, students may come, but it's very difficult. And so the idea there is to soon as kids finish at the high school, we can grab them. They can be with us for 90 minutes and hopefully get home and do their work and not trying

124to come back at a 7 o'clock or 6:00 in those pieces. That was a very large piece of letting voice of students be heard at those meetings and things. >> Thank you for the questions. Perfect. Thank you. >> All right. All right. So we'll go ahead and uh have our next colleagues come up here from So this is our team from Northwell Health. And so uh had a chance um a few times last year to go ahead and and connect um with the team here. And so in in that regard u I'll go ahead and turn this over again. Um think about our district's you know pillar there about keeping students social emotional wellness as in the forefront and students connected there. So I'll go ahead and let you introduce yourselves. As the board may

125recall, this is a part where we talked a little bit of last year and this team was out in Long Island for a number of years establishing a kind of a similar structure support for school districts out there and had a chance to actually meet with you a little bit not last year but the year before and so um very good to see you again here. So thank you so much for coming tonight. >> Thank you guys for having us. So uh my name is Vera Foyer. I'm a child and adolescent psychiatrist and I'm the medical director for child psychiatry for Northwell's behavioral health service line and this is my colleague >> uh Grace O Shaughnessy, senior director of community health at Northern Westchester Hospital. We've worked with your district for many years um to

126provide health education in the schools as well as um have some of your students join us on our president's junior leadership council >> uh which are both programs that we're going to expand on in the mental health space and we're going to expand on the work that Grace and her team are doing and and we'll tell you uh how so welcome Kitona Lewis Boro to the North School Mental Health Partnerships. uh you are one of uh the pioneering Westchester districts that are going to uh help us uh hopefully establish this model up here in Westchester. Uh like was mentioned, we have been doing this work in Long Island for about five and a half years and have worked with many many districts in various different ways. And our mission and model is really uh guiding

127principles are really to break down silos. uh uh you in the education system, families, community uh providers and hospital systems tend to be in their own little silos and nothing really efficiently gets done for families in terms of getting them the help and the support and the care that they need without collaboration and working together. So that's really our uh primary guiding principle and what we're really uh with the overall work what we're trying to do is uh get ahead of the crisis. So uh I come from an emergency psychiatry background. I've worked in emergency rooms, crisis services, ambulatory crisis services for a really long time. And the clinical part of some of our work uh does involve those crisis services. But really the school work and the partnering with schools and communities has really

128focused on and leaned in to the prevention and early recognition portion of the work as well. uh because it is just as important. And then creating access and overall having these topics be discussed uh be part of the culture and then promoting equity and decreasing stigma around uh getting mental health uh care. And we do also have uh the multi-tered systems of support model that you follow in many other ways in schools including in mental health, right? uh and in literacy as I just learned uh and uh you know it is it is a really helpful model right because there are different levels of services that kids need and you know tier one is what we're going to focus on that is the partnership that we're entering with Katona uh for this year uh and

129that really focuses on prevention and on all students and all parents and it really is trying to bring uh partnering programs uh with the community as was mentioned before along professional development along parent support and training and also student work direct to student education uh and support. So, we're going to be partnering on tier one services this year and I'm going to go uh through them in detail and really the goals here again is collaborate, educate and support families while we are as north health establishing ourselves and building services here in Westchester County for children and adolescents to uh be able to get care because we know that there's a big uh gap in care uh in the everywhere in the country uh but in particular in this region and then training and supporting school

130staff, teachers, administrators and clinicians really everybody and getting to all the parents. Uh so to get this done we have big teams. This is our school mental health administrative team. You will meet all these people or get emails from them. Your teams are getting oriented by this team. Uh this is uh uh my colleagues. Dr. Falovitz is my associate director. He's also a child psychiatrist. you no doubt will hear him talk and he'll hold some of the education session. We have a big faculty uh that delivers the content uh that we provide to schools and we have partners like Grace and Ka from Northern Westchester Hospitals. They are local hospital partners here to help support a lot of the programming that we do and Dr. Konzaro you may have met before uh if he was

131involved with your district but he's our chair of psychiatry over at Northern Westchester. And then the other folks are other people in our system who support care coordination, resources, education, uh, and advocacy programming for our districts. So our tier one services are along these buckets and we're going to go through each of them. So there is education for the community available. There's education and professional development with CEU and CTLE credits for the staff. Uh there's education and advocacy programming for students and then there's collaborative meetings uh with the clinical teams when they need support uh and also administrative support for the district. If you know, let's hope we'll never need it, but if there's a critical incident that happens in the district and you need guidance on post vvention on support, uh we work with

132the districts to gauge what they need and how we can support them. And we do also create and generate and share a lot of online resources for families and uh staff uh as well that focus on again mental health literacy, education uh as well as resources uh and resources including things that impact health overall. All the social determinants of health uh that we know uh impact uh everywhere. Uh so we have resources for those things as well and helping connect families to uh those resources when they need. So for the community education, we do rely and we welcome and we're going to be partnering with your district on all the ways we can uh communicate this to your community uh because the community needs to know that these are available and we also need to

133partner on district specific needs for education in the community. So we do provide a monthly newsletter to the administrative and clinical teams in the districts. That newsletter does have a community embedded version in it that can be shared out with the community that has all the parent programming. I'm sure Dr. Blanch already has a plan on you know where we're putting this on the website on parents where however you communicate out social media however you share content with your families. uh and we do send that once a month. And our community education uh uh series are there's several different ones. Uh we have a parenting series that's a webinar series. It's a lunch and learn. We have some that are in the evenings. This one happens to be at lunchtime because we just get more

134attendance somehow at lunchtime than in the evenings. They're virtual sessions. Part of them are recorded and go on a YouTube channel for those that cannot attend. And then the recording gets shut down so we can have interactive discussion and families can feel comfortable chatting in or asking questions from our experts. I'm hosting the first one of the year and it's going to be about the phones. Anybody wants to come and engage in that discussion with us, please do. I'm passionate about it. >> What was the title again in that? I'm trying to think. >> Phones learning operation. >> That's one of us. Yes. Very. >> Uh yes. And so the topics are wide reaching. They're for all parents. Really, you child doesn't need to struggle with a mental health issue to benefit from these sessions.

135And they really are focusing on the parenting topics of today. Raising resilient kids, academic stress, competition, uh digital uh uh social digital life, social media, phones, all of those kinds of topics will pop up. uh and uh that is available already and the schedule is out for sharing. Uh we also throughout the year hold uh school avoidance parent support groups. These groups are also educational. They're part support, part education. So again, not a clinical offering. You don't need insurance. You don't even need to give your real name if you don't want to. There's zoom sessions for parents to come and get education from a clinician about they're running in two different topics right now and we may be developing new ones because we might find in Westchester or in 2025 26 different things are the

136need this has been the biggest need in the recent years and that is a support group for school avoidant parents of school avoidant kids uh to learn about school avoidance to get support to meet other families to learn about how to manage it and Then the second one is supporting your anxious child. Uh with anxiety being one of the most common chief complaints that we see in our clinical services and a lot of parents needing support uh in supporting their kids that have anxiety and what are the clinical approaches that we can teach them. We also have printed information like mentioned uh this uh will hopefully this year move to a more userfriendly format. Uh for now this is what we got. Uh but basically you scan the link and you get a series of

137topics that you can choose. You can download them, print them, get them emailed to you. You choose what you want to learn about. You can choose your language. Most of them are available in Spanish, some are in Mandarin. And we're working on more languages. And we have started this year working on some studentf facing materials. So for kids about what is depression, how do you know whether you're depressed or you need help? What's anxiety versus normal worrying? You know, those are the first couple ones that we have is those are the most common issues, but we're going to be developing them through the year and we're always hungry and open for suggestions and requests. We do have all the information for uh school staff and for the community organized. The Google Drive is for school

138staff to use with all the resources we have for them and for them to download, resources to share with families. And then we do have a YouTube community education channel where some of our recordings will go. There's recordings from last year and previous year that people can access now if they wish to look at it and then the new ones will be posted. Uh and those are some of our community facing programming. Now I will say I mentioned it before every district can reach out to us and request things. So if your PTA, your SEPTA, your, you know, a certain elementary school wants to host a a topic, a parent session, education session, we have a district request form that staff can submit with the request and we'll work together with the district to uh

139create or deliver or assign schedule uh that programming. So for professional development for your staff uh we do have some collaborative meetings for the staff available that are uh part updates and part clinical discussions. One of them is a clinical case discussion uh learning model called project echo which comes out of the University of New Mexico. It's uh where experts connect virtually with one another and it's a learn all teach all model. Uh so that it's not just your school's clinicians but other school clinicians from other places as well as Northwell mental health teams discussing cases. There's a case discussion portal. Of course this is all deidentified. No student identifying information ever gets utilized during these discussions. They're purely for learning and teaching purposes. And then we have other expert sessions for your staff to

140attend to learn different things about the different areas of expertise that again we select carefully as it's relevant to schools. We'll have our legal team come present on relevant HIPPA fura compliance you know protecting uh information uh topic but we'll have our trauma team. you'll have, you know, our triage team, our crisis programs, all kinds of uh teams come and then we meet specifically with the districts and we do uh report out on uh the utilization of the program. So, we have a dashboard for each district. We'll be able to tell you how many CEUs were given to your district, how many parents logged into the sessions, you know, who's utilizing the groups, what's your overall numbers, of course, again, all the identified. This is the professional session schedule for the year. Uh it's not

141even it's even as it is it's too small. It's just to give you a flavor that it's a lot. It's a lot of different topics, a lot of different sessions. We've shared it with PNW Boseies. This is going to come to staff through the learning plan in uh Boseis. We're partnering with them. Uh and CTLE and CEU credits are available for clinical staff and teachers and administrators. Uh and then we do have uh some of our other offerings, our echo sessions which are also yielding CEU and our other community offerings here. Uh one thing that I'll say which is not listed because it's not scheduled yet, but this year we are rolling out a community education series in Spanish and Mandarin. Uh so we will have Zoom sessions for parents similar white parenting topics uh

142in other languages. And then student education. I mean Grace and her team already has done so much uh with the districts up here and this is just a general guide but we do have a specific list of topics and you know her team does a lot of health education around many many different topics and we've also developed curriculum for mental health specific topics. So stress management, mindfulness, body image issues, teen relationships, healthy uh the decision making all those kinds of things. And these again requested by the districts worked with us to work it into uh what we do. But we've also done workshops because some schools have a wellness center and they want to do a workshop for students or uh some have a mental health club and they want to do something or they

143we get invited to come and do an assembly uh for the students on a certain mental health topic. So we again just kind of uh listen to you guys what you need and what you want and then uh we work together. And then the last thing I'm going to mention and then we'll be ready for questions is our coen strong mental health uh student advocacy program. This is a high school program. It's somewhat similar to the president junior leadership council which takes students, trains them and has them work on projects. So the kind of idea is similar. The training is different. It's teen mental health first aid which is a peer counseling model. So kids get certified to become peer counselors. And then it's also training very much focused on mental health advocacy uh project

144development and research. How do you measure the impact of your project? The second part of the year, the school adviser and northwell mentors work with the high school students and each district will have three to five students if they participate in the program uh participate and and get the training and those students together and they could engage other students and some do. Some engage their mental health club or their anti- whatever you know you have in the district uh to create a mental health project for the district. And the mental health project can be big and small. And some students will do a project for the elementary school or the middle school where the high school students go and do training or education for the younger kids. Some, you know, we had a district do

145uh pet therapy and the kids figured out how to do it and fund it. Or we had them create wellness spaces. or we had one that figured out how to give everybody before AP exams a little bit of distress time in a space that was quiet and had the tools. All kinds of things the kids come up with and they use their skills to advocate with all of you uh to get permission for it and then we help them uh make it a reality. And then the other real life really exciting part of this program and I'm going to do a little bragging on behalf of our students is that we do go on real life advocacy events. We go to Albany. The kids apply for scholarships to come to Washington DC to lobby with

146state uh legislators uh and federal legislators on all kinds of mental health legislation that's on uh the docket. And you'll see on the picture there, our group is now the biggest student advocacy group in Albany on mental health matters day. And our student and I've been shouting came out, Jacob Wilmetz from HOPA got this year's state award uh as a student mental health advocate that the governor and uh the OM commissioner is going to give Jacob in October in Albany. So we're very very proud of uh the uh students in the program. Um, and we do also have an advisory board. I know you guys were talking about, you know, some of that work in other areas in the district. We have an advisory board. We're going to have a call for applications for Westchester

147uh for parents, students, teachers, clinicians, anybody really can apply. Uh we do have community members also get a letter from the school and see who the school contact is that they're working with. uh and you know sort of a recommendation and then uh we meet quarterly uh and we give progress reports we get feedback we uh act on the feedback we get and try to build it in into the programming and that is how sort of the program evolves and develops uh each year is based on that feedback uh and then I did mention critical incident support already if you know something happens in a district we're really here to support in many ways sometimes it's only administrative ative. Sometimes we deploy teams, we have held bereavement groups. Uh we've linked people into care if

148they needed. It really just depends on the situation and the circumstances. And that's our district request form. So if the district needs any specific programming, whether it's a superintendence day faculty conference or meeting or training or anything else, you know, we're happy to collaborate and work together on how we can support the district. and we hope that we grow stronger together. This is again preventive services. We do have other programming and you know uh we're hoping that uh we'll start here and we'll progress and as we build services in Westchester we'll be able to collaborate on also getting access and care uh for the students that need it and we're very excited. >> That's it. >> Thank you. wonderings board or just thoughts or >> it's incredible uh offerings really so robust. Are there any

149other school districts that you're working with in Westchester? >> Yes, so we have uh Caramel is also in tier one offerings like you are and then we have six other districts who partnered with us for the full programming which includes the crisis services, some consultative services and other things. Uh, and uh, I don't know if I'll be able to rattle them off, but I'll try. Byram Hills, uh, Chapaqua, Henry Hudson, Lakeland, Peak Skilling, and Brier Cliff. Thank you. >> Wow. That's great. Great. >> Very exciting. >> Thank you. >> When you say advisory board, is that just for us? Like our community's advisory board? >> So, it's a Westchester. So, there's several group. It's regional. Yes. So, we have one in Westchester and we have them in Long Island. Yeah. because the needs are different,

150the communities are different. So, we really want to hear, you know, the feedback. >> What is the hardest group of of individuals to get involved in this? Community, parents, >> parents, parents >> by far. >> Really? >> Mhm. And I think some of that, and this is where we need you guys and the partnership comes in, is some I mean, parents are busy. I'm a parent, too. Like, how many emails do I get from school? I always joke I think I'm the only one reading the mental health newsletter in my district because I want to make sure they send it out but because my district's also a partner in Long Island but uh but yes so you know parents get a lot of emails they're very busy there's a lot of things like you don't

151necessarily look for these things unless they really so you know whether it's supported on a building level and communicated on a building level maybe that's better received or if it's pushed out in other ways like that's really where we and we need to hear from you about what are the topics that are needed because we have an idea obviously and we have a lot of feedback from a lot of schools that we work with and we have our own clinical experiences on our clinical services of what we're seeing as trends or as things that are coming up uh you know obviously you need the newspapers you'll see the trends right of you know right now AI and chat bots and therapy bots and how do we manage all of that like all of these things

152come up and and and Uh that's where the partnership really comes in. How can we engage the community? How can we engage the parents? >> That's the question that I have is how do we plan on getting it? So anecdotally, my mother was in the hospital in Northwell Hospital last week and I um she was in ICU and then she was in a step down unit. Both times somebody came to me from >> this magical place that was like I'm actually not here for her. I'm here for you. I'm here to find out how you were doing. the caregiver center and >> it it I didn't know it existed, right? And so that goes back to how are we going to let parents know that this exists because >> there was a moment like I

153like gave this woman who I did not know a hug because she was just there for me and you know so like it's really empowering to know that we're standing behind that but how are we going to let our parents know because I don't think our parents are not involved because they don't want to be. >> Sure. our parents are involved because they don't know these things are there until they need them. >> Yeah. So I think part of that with Frank and then also with our communications team with Amanda Bergen leading that they've got some kind of process that they're going through tomorrow as we mentioned I'll have the kind of touchstone with our parent council. I just do a little highlight on this as far as our Northwell partnership. So as they're all

154reps of our PTO's and our receptive organization seeing what they have our our typical best path is out of those schoolbased communications like you were saying before the Friday note that I put out that has a pretty high readership and so there may be some initial pieces that when we're ready that'll put the volley out there to start with and so that's a part where we're going to just continue to see what uh is most helpful there but that's where Amanda and Frank will be working with the buildings uh administration seeing how we can have that be an ongoing part of the conversation with our parents and again I think daddy about tying in some students as they mentioned as well too that helps again if we get our kids involved and they'll get those

155families involved so that's a partnership that we're definitely interested in seeing how that can help us to get uh you know our families aware of things >> and then there's an opportunity to overlap a little bit so I think the PTO appreciate knowing that they could request specific talks or specific support because they have you know monthly um principles coffee PTO meetings where people are already coming together and so if there's a particular topic that people are interested in for that school community knowing that they have this resource that they can >> um plug into um will be just really helpful >> and I think when you spoke there it's similar to what the team has done here partnering with Boseies because when teachers look at hey here's something I might be interested in learning

156about they go on to what's called frontline well now all the the courses and opportunities they share is now in Frontline for folks so I didn't I didn't have to look for it too hard so it's in the system they're already working So ideas like that of where our parents are already engaging with us PTO and so how can we kind of connect with those and then other ways just we see what things that families are reading and and that happens to be some of those Friday notes in my office or out of the buildings and things. Another opportunity that occurs to me would be to try to organize conversation through a principal's coffee on the heels of one of these because my understanding and I I did register for one once >> um is

157that these are Zooms primarily right they're webinars they're workshops >> and that both can have benefits because it's kind of private to participate but it also can be a little bit isolating potentially depending on the topic and why someone's partic participating in the first place. So, in the same way that our principles have been bringing articles or readings to a principal's coffee, if a principal's coffee is held shortly thereafter one of these, it could be sort of organized as, hey, you know, let's have the middle school parents really rally to register for one of these that feels appropriate and then we're going to debrief it or share our learning at a conversation that's a community-based conversation. And that would also then just, you know, kind of connect our administrators and our um our parent population

158through the work and the topics that you're providing. Could be really nice if if we could get to that. >> It's a great idea. >> Yeah. And and I think that's where I like the way you said if we're hungry for information and ideas and thoughts and I think that's where now this is all a new journey for us and the partnership here is just exactly that. So I don't think there's a a wrong next step or a right one. It's just what makes the most sense for us and we'll just kind of keep moving forward with that. >> I did want to shley make a plug here. So I just for the board so just remind ourselves back to pillar five here about students you know well-being and kind of our description of this

159pillar is the idea about um just go here a little bit higher and then hit the description. Uh KSD will nurture students well-being helping them thrive both inside and outside the classroom. And a little description there is that we prioritize the holistic well-being of students recognizing that social, emotional, and physical health and are crucial for lifelong growth by providing supportive resources and fostering a caring environment. We help students develop resilience, self-awareness, and a balanced approach to life. And kind of one of the aspirations that we've a lot of them fit in there, but some of the aspirations are uh community building, hosting events to strengthen our skills, preparation for lifelong learning, appropriation skills, healthy lifestyles, looking at supportive culture, and then the opportunity about thinking about embedding programs and supporting emotional intelligence and resilience for

160our kids. This activity is actually in the district where we say, what are some of our empowerment actions? And this is one of those actions that if you look at our district's 2030 plan, it's identified as to initiate a pilot partnership with your team. So, thank you for for joining us on our journey here and uh again, thank you for coming tonight. So, thank you ladies. >> Thank you guys. Thanks very much. >> Keep the ideas coming. >> Thank you. you know, if if there was an upside of COVID, I don't know if but mental health issues have been around for a very long time and I think CO finally put the spotlight in the need for treatment and people are really reaching out and embracing it. So, I really do hope the community, you

161know, takes this to heart and takes this resources that's being offered. So, thank you bringing them to us. >> Thank you guys. Thank you. >> And that brings us um to 9.04 discussion of the board of education goals for 2025 2026 school year and the finance committee charge for this upcoming year. I think that those are in Yep. So, if we turn to the recommendations, sorry, I was looking to see if there's a highlight of the changes. I think the board leadership goal was the same. >> Mhm. >> I think we're looking at the ones for this, right? >> Yeah. >> Oh, right. >> Yeah. So, I don't think we have drafts. We don't have a more general discussion. I hope everybody had a chance to read the goals that we had last year. And

162if anybody has any thoughts or um I think goal number two definitely needs some tweaking because we have the 2030 plan now and your entry plan was successful. >> Thanks. >> In my opinion, uh you only got you got a little bit done this past year that uh was extremely uh worthwhile. Um, so I think if we go through these one by one, um, does anybody have any comments on the leadership goal? [Music] I mean, I think that those are all efforts that should continuously be in place, right? So, I wouldn't say that we want to change any of them. If anybody wanted to add something, I could see that, but I don't want to say that. All right. Well, there so we're good. >> They all align with the 2030 plan. >> Yeah. They're

163all right in step. And I think all three of these goals were tweaked last year pretty significantly from our prior goals with Ry coming in. Marjorie, you'll keep me honest on that one. I think that's I think this this goal has evolved and I feel proud revisiting the goal in light of the conversations we've had tonight and so much of the work that we're hearing about tonight. When I reflect on all that we've heard through the lens of this goal, it feels as if this is where the board of education should be focused and the administration and our staff are, you know, really um implementing fantastic resources to help us um fulfill this promise is how I is how I see it. So, thank you for that. Um, that's not adjusting the goal necessarily, but

164it's good sort of proof of concept. >> Anybody have any changes they like to make to the leadership goal or should we move on to uh the KSD 2030 plan? And I mean, I think I think it's still it's good to have a goal around the 2030 plan. We're really in our f entering our first full year of implementation. >> So wondering maybe just that first bullet right kind of come out on that one. But thinking about as this year as we start shifting to now the plan there and providing updates on those pillars, those six pillars throughout the year and the board was kind enough, we kind of dappled around that a bit last year and so just looking at the board kind of if it's a receive or whatever um you know updates

165on the six pillars aligned to the 2030 plan I think that that would be very helpful. So that's clear that there's expected updates on those those six pillars throughout the year and stuff. So >> maybe something along the lines of enabling supporting the implementation with sort of regular reporting something along those lines. >> Yep. And I don't know but the language may or may not be uh helpful there and maybe it could be in the following year but would like to walk through the board with as we start to identify it. And um in the 2030 plan, we have those empowerment kind of actions, but at the building level, we'll be seeing empowerment plans. It's it down to each building level too. So I would like to show you that next level of evolution of

166the action plan. So we've got the high level 2030 10,000 foot view initial here, but now each building now will be having an empowerment plan there. So perhaps we can look at the idea about and visiting the building based empowerment plans if that be all right. And that'll give you a sense of kind of now where it's notching down to the next level. >> I think that's a great idea. I had forgotten that you had the plan for the building level >> to cascade down. So I think that makes sense to receive um updates on the pillars and >> the building level empowerment plans. Does anybody have any thoughts on that? That is a goal >> looking for a time frame in updates. >> So we have >> on the spot there. >> Oh, no.

167That's great. Yeah. So, we have a calendar and Kim can go ahead and provide that. We have um six different topics throughout the year to do to do those updates on each one of those pillars. So, um as opposed to trying to squeeze them all out at once, we try to work around we got the budget kind of starts and that takes a chunk of time up. So, we try to avoid those meetings. So, we do we do have those dates and we'll be able to get those to shortly. Um but those would be at our regular scheduled board meetings. We'd have those updates on those pillars. Yeah. And then kind of leading into the second one there a little bit as far as a an update kind of regarding the plan. Again, it's kind

168of in there. So maybe that's where Barbara was thinking before to that idea about now we're shifting to the empowerment plans out in the school. So let's see kind of what that starts to look like on a on a systems level. So >> that works. >> Yep. >> Thank you. >> So you and Kim will work on something. Yeah. Thanks. >> If you need anything else from us and then um fiscal stewardship like how it reads still. I think it's still applicable. >> I think in light of federal and state actions is going to be probably our most >> challenging >> interesting. Yeah. Um goal of the year. Everybody feel good about goal number three? >> Yeah. >> Okay. Thank you. And then we so this is where I was remembering we have a revised

169we have a revised for 2025 2026 the finance committee charge So think of you maintains the health insurance um charge. I I'd like to continue to develop the um long range financial plan. I think that's going to put us in a very good >> spot moving forward from that last year. No, we're >> taking it down this year. >> Yeah. The fiveyear >> plan also >> and and the health insurance, you know, 25% of or whatever 20 25% of our budget is health insurance. So, it's something we we continually have to look at and evaluate. I know it's a tough it's going to be tough to pivot on it, but uh it's something we need to continue to look at. Yeah. And the BCS is is is upon us. Yes. And we need to >>

170That was quick, right? >> Yeah. >> We want to make sure we're we're we you know, priorities and how much it's going to cost and look at that. And I and and with that piece, I just appreciate the board's earnest in that because the multiple millions of dollars of investment the community has made from all the years ahead of time to now to moving forward. It is a responsibility for us to take care of, you know, of our schools. >> And so having that up there up in front, paying attention to that is good cuz it's it's easy to like defer maintenance. It's like, but man, you just pay for it in the long run, three-fold over. So having that be up there front and center, I think is personally a very very good call.

171Yeah. Yeah. And >> to that end, you know, if there's one thing that I would recommend us considering is to actually move that up to be the first bullet because it's sort of the most immediate kind of tangible one that we will definitely, you know, sort of have to focus in the in a shorter term in a way. I think the long-range financial plan as well. The health insurance is one where we have the least I think amount. Would you agree like of control over how much we can do? Yes. >> And so I think it's I agree that it's important to continue to look at it, but in terms of how much the committee would be able to actually sort of move forward, there's so much that doesn't depend on us, >> right? >>

172Um guess I just wanted to seek clarification. And I'm sorry to interrupt your train of thought, but in looking back at the last time or the most recent time we were required to do a BCS and develop the capital plan, I don't recall whether or that we charged the finance committee with a specific role prior to bringing that to the board for, you know, presentation and adoption. So, can you help me out with that? Um it I did look back at for we looked back Bill and I at um at prior charges and it was on a charge and the reason we kind of put it in that order is the BCS and the five-year fin uh plan the five-year capital plan will not be ready until winter fall winter. It's actually due to the

173state March 1st. So that's kind of why we kind of um >> chronological. >> Yeah, it's more chronological not like priority. So, or but I agree when we could kind of move the health insurance to the bottom, but the long range plan would probably be work we'd be doing more in the beginning the first half of the year just due to the fact that we will not have the BCS to begin that work. >> Was it in 2020 then that we did that? >> Let me see if I can find the document. Um >> because I'm just wondering thinking about at that time I'm not sure that we had a facilities committee >> and we now have both. So, I just think it's worth thinking about where where that happens if that's going to happen

174outside of the public eye on a subcommittee. I just want to make sure we're thinking about the options and what we want to do. >> Kim was saying she believes where I read it was it's part of um the policy itself. So, I'm just opening. >> Ah, okay. Thank you. Thank you. No, that that could be it's part it's part of the finance committee's board policy. Okay. That that that's very helpful. But it is a very valid question because if we do have a committee that is so focused on facilities and sort sort of so you know sort of in the weeds so to speak on needs and projects and ongoing work. Certainly it sounds to me like there's some benefit to there being collaboration and and and >> and there being sort of a

175a lot of information sharing. I don't know what's the right way for that to take place, but it does make sense to me that facilities would be a really >> additive um voice to this work. >> But I think when you read the second half of the sentence, it's to provide the recommendations um with a financial viewpoint which is squarely in the finance. Yeah. >> Mhm. >> I'm assuming that with the board policy and not being here that that the last 5-year piece of maybe the one before that this team went through it, looked at what was possible and then >> started handing over to I guess the existing facilities committee and said, "Okay, here's here's the elements we can do." The partnership is is essential, I would say, in there. >> And then as

176we know that the committee on kind of the facilities is still kind of wrapping up the bond for a bit longer. And then right on the heels of that, we may have the project at the LS campus as well as the project on the accessing the capital reserve funds for the athletic facilities. So those are going to be there. And I don't I wouldn't anticipate anything that's on this 5-year plan like the athletic facilities be on there. So that'll shift over. So I like the way you described to Barbara. It is a is a handshake I guess between those two groups and just making sure we make sure that happens I think is the best way to do that. >> Yeah. And it is definitely in our board policy. I just hadn't looked at that

177in a long time, but it's 2250. It's right there. Long-term capital improvements is part of the responsibility of the finance committee. So >> again, at that time when we last looked at this policy, we wouldn't have had a facilities committee, but I think makes total sense for everything we're talking about to >> have it. I think we just haven't called it out in a finance committee charge previously, >> but it doesn't mean we shouldn't. I I just was looking to kind of understand why and what we've done and what we're doing now. But I do >> I think Thank you. Also as we work on the long range plan and maybe next year then it becomes incorporated as that data will be available to incorporate into longrange plan like how will we meet these you

178know facilities may look more prioritizing the physical plant and this is more looking at how can we make these things happen. >> Yeah. >> And a long range incorporated long range plan. Yeah. >> Yeah. >> Sounds great. >> Yeah. >> Makes sense. So I think the next step is that this goes um comes back to us next meeting and we vote to adopt um both the goals and the finance committee charge. Okay. Thank you. Um as there is no one here for public comment um I we do once again request you know community come down and talk to us. We'd love to hear what you're thinking. But for tonight, we are going to close public comment 10.0 and then um the consent agenda. Does anybody have anything to pull out from the consent agenda tonight?

179Would somebody like to move the consent agenda? Um moved by Arwin, second by Marjorie. Um all those in favor? Oh, just >> yes, please. Thank you so much to the community members who responded to our call for volunteers and we are very much looking forward to working with them. Some of them returning and then a couple of new ones. So that's very exciting and we really appreciate that partnership. >> Yes. Thank you. I realized I should have asked if there's any discussion about the consent agenda. Get ahead of myself. Thank you Marjorie. >> Thank you. Thank you. >> Um so now we can vote. All those in favor? 70. Thank you. That brings us to 16.01 board dialogue and discussion. Um and we did put off thrive from the beginning of the meeting. I um

180did reach out to a friend of mine who's on president of the Bedford um board and they are discussing it as well. They have several members that are already involved in Thrive. So I think at least two members are already involved in in Thrive activities. Um I didn't get a chance to connect with her live but that was the note I received back from her. And then I did reach out to u Miss Corbett Turo with our questions. So, she came back with um I'm sorry for those who you weren't here. Thrive reached out to us um they want to do a partnership with the Bedford um school districts. I believe both of you had received the email from um over the summer from Miss Corbett Turbo. Um so we went back and asked her

181some just some clarifying questions so that we can make a decision as a board if we were interested um in joining as a having a board member um as a non- voting liaison and um so she came back said the meetings would be on the first Wednesday of each month from 6:00 to 7:30 p.m. as of right now, subject to change. Um, and if our designate couldn't make it, um, of course they would send the minutes of the meeting and brief them separately on what happened at the meeting. Um, then we also asked whether a board of education member would be the correct person. Um, we were wondering if a PTO member or a school district employee would actually be more helpful and she said as a steering committee exeicio member, they believe a BOE

182member is the correct person for this special role. Uh we are now taking our coalition to a new level. We were awarded the drug-free communities grant from the CDC. It's a five-year grant of $125,000 per year. The major requirement of the grant is to engage sector partners. Crucial to this is the education sector where we aim to expand involvement at multiple levels for our gen general membership committees and affiliate membership. We also hope to have PTO members involved. We have participation of SAS counselors and years ago we had resource officers participate and then um I also asked her what would her expectations um of having a board member participate be and it would be to increase collaboration understanding visibility and engagement with Thrive throughout the schools in ways that are most beneficial to both the

183schools and thrive. And then I had also asked her before I connected with Jillian um whether Bedford currently has a board member working with Thrive and there they were still awaiting. Um so I do open this up. We're you know many of us are involved on many committees already. I see that this is a potential very beneficial thing. There is a lot of grant money that could continue help with, you know, we have the partnership going with Northwell, but it just kind of rs out availability for our vulnerable students. >> You know, if the meetings are in person or Zoom, did she happen to say? >> She didn't say where. >> Okay. >> Did ask where. Um, I would assume that they're most likely in person. first Wednesday of each month from 6:00 to 7:30.

184>> Um, but if you couldn't make it, you know, they would definitely send us an update. We wouldn't be needed for a vote on anything. So, we wouldn't hold anything up on their end. It would just be to provide our advice. I open up if anybody's interested in serving in this role. Okay, >> they can reach out to you. [Music] >> So, you know, at this time I would will thank her for offering and maybe keep us, you know, for future um we may be able to participate, but at this time um we look forward to, you know, whatever other type of um partnership we can offer with them would be good, >> I guess. I'm sorry I missed last week. >> That's okay. >> Did we What is she looking to get from our

185We're not voting, right? She can fill us in on what their meetings are. What participation is she looking to get from us? >> Well, she's looking for, you know, she says here, you know, just more information about what our our schools and our students and our community may be um looking for. It's just another voice from a different perspective. We're sitting around the board table. We're hearing um other things that other people may not be privy to that we can help to disseminate in a to take the confidentiality out and to disseminate that in a way that would not breach our confidentiality that we have in executive session. I'm sure that they're looking for some of that flavor of what programs might be most beneficial, where where do we need help? um where can they

186you know assist? >> In her original email she does says if a board member is not available the person designated as a liaison representative to our steering committee could also be someone closely connected to the board and schools. >> She think we're going to be reporting out on these meetings at our board meetings that to disseminate the information. >> It would assume that you know they would expect that as it would be exopicio comm you know we would add that to our community reports our committee reports. Okay. Um anybody have anything else for board dialogue tonight? Well, I do as a reminder for Kim and I'm only halfway through. We have our training that's due by the end of this month, the GCN. >> So, um I keep having it open and I keep I'm

187about halfway through. I keep getting distracted. I think the two there's two that are long. Um 30 minutes and I think 40 minutes, but yeah. So, I've left those two. I got to do the quick ones. Um but please uh it is one of our duties as board members to get that training completed. >> I would like to reflect back on something that Hudson said in his comments and I'm going to open with a Mark Twain quote if I may. Nothing that grieves us can be called little. By the eternal laws of proportion, a child's loss of a doll and a king's loss of a crown are events of the same size. for some of our kids not coming and having their cell phones had to be and is probably very traumatic where for everybody

188else it's like just makes sense. And the fact that albeit the first week there's also there's already the self-recognition and the self- acknowledgement that there is a difference and they've noticed it and they've seen the positive I think is pretty huge and I think our students need to be commended on that. >> That's awesome. Anybody else? >> I just want to say it was really great to have you participate so actively in the conversation today. You know, I really appreciated it. Looking forward to more. >> Thank you. >> Yeah. >> Um and I just do want to thank our community again for their patience. they're coming to the podium for many years. Um, thank you Julia. You started this work when you came joined us near three years ago almost two two plus >> well

189she's in her and you're in your third year and Ray for championing this cause um to get this amazing group um in in front of our teachers and our students and you know they had many kind words which are very good to hear but that comprehensive report that they put in front of us where they found the opportunities and gave us some great recommendations that your your team is already putting into place. Um is it's very heartwarming and I hope our community um is thankful for that but also know that we are not done and this is um the beginning. So thank you. >> Yes. Some of the um some of the most vocal people have reached out to me and they are thankful for what we're doing. >> That's awesome. >> Yeah. which is

190which is great because I I took a lot of earfuls >> back in the day. >> Yeah. So, it's really really great. >> Yeah. >> Um any anybody else? >> Just want to reiterate my gratefulness as well. Um, I as have a lot of questions, but it comes from a place of really serious excitement and you can't tell. I'm super excited and obviously support an accelerated time frame for all of the changes and I'm so grateful and I know that I've seen the differences. Um, I have two kids, one in going into middle school and one starting second grade and the difference and the changes in those few years have been great. So, please don't take my questions as a lack of excitement for these changes and a full support. I do want to point

191out that plenty of boards in Westchester County have academic performance curriculum um and equity board level committees where regular checking in on our highquality instructional materials and review and and having and looking at the data to raise point about getting to the point where we have data to look at by subject matter and therefore can identify which subjects we might need a new curriculum. And I don't mean this to the district. I mean that to our board of ed colleagues. there are systems we can put in place and I would encourage us to look at to put in place um so that we don't have to wait for the the the unicorn to come along and and bring us to this point. Um I'm so grateful for you and the and the changes you've made.

192Um and I would like to hope um that we can have the systems in place so that when the research changes or comes to light for any subject matter. I happen to know about reading because I taught first grade, but I don't know what we're missing in any other subject area. Um, and we have lots of experts in our community and parents who who do have some of that knowledge. Um, and we have teachers who maybe were asking for a long time for this change too that we could listen to early um earlier as a board of ed. Um, and that's what I'll say. I think Dobs Fairy, Irvington, Pelum, there's plenty of examples where they have a board level um, review process. that that would um and looks at the data and the curriculum

193and I would ask us to consider um it's not tonight you know obviously not an urgent and the finances will be a huge um challenge for us this year but something to think about um >> did we at some point I I have a vague recollection and I could be wrong but at some point did we have an academics related word committee and you know it'd be good to understand did we have that? If we don't, why did we decide no longer to have that? And what was the work of that committee at that time? Not that we would go back to the past and do what was done before, but just to understand and to also think about like if we were to have something like that, what would be sort of its clearly

194defined role in a way that would be supportive of the administration? >> No. No. No. no intention for any committee to to take the role of of the experts that we've hired and are doing a fantastic job. Um, but more of a a mechanism. I mean, we're setting sustainability goals, you know, for K for 2040. Um, and I'd love to see board level goals around our academic >> um around Amberex. Yeah. >> Achievement. Yes. >> Yes. Correct. Um maybe a takeaway from this Caroline is reaching out to some of these boards to see how does that work? What are you guys doing? Um and just to continue this dialogue and and and see if this is something that that would make sense for us. Um I happen to know I think the president of the

195board of the Dobs Ferry because our kids play soccer together back when we were in Dobs Fairy with Julia as our principal. Um but um >> I don't know that it's necessarily the right decision for us, but I just want you know as we celebrate this and look forward I just want to make sure we don't miss anything obvious for another subject area and that we have a regular cadence by which we're ensuring as a board of ed again not not a not in any way a a concern about our lovely administration. >> Of course of course but there's always you know there's nothing to lose in just learning more about what other boards are doing. I think not just in this but in general I think it's helpful to to look around in Westchester

196and I think that this is something where the organizations where we belong with um you know Westbot and Nisbet is a really helpful place to kind of get a sense of what others are doing and and I think that this is part of that. Um so I think this is a conversation that can be not that we'll necessarily have a particular outcome but it's a conversation that we can definitely continue to to learn more about. I think it would get that some of the um parents feeling p participatory in the direction and the goal setting there. Um and again it would be advisory in my head obviously not a dec you know not necessarily a deciding committee you know in that but anyway thank you for listening. Shall we turn to next meeting or break?

197>> Yeah. >> No, next meeting is next meeting. Thank >> uh so >> save the best for last >> as always. We will be meeting here at 700 p.m. Just again a reminder to the community that we have changed our meeting time uh September 18th here in John J High School Library. And then we'll we will be meeting again October 9th here in the John J High School Library at 7 p.m. >> And now Rey, >> superintendent's comments. >> Um couple things. One, just back to that a little bit of conversation. Um just fast forwarding here, you know, uh a year or two. So vision in place now pillar reports coming empowerment plan we're going to be exploring a bit now what are identified as smart goals will be coming forth as that too. So

198um the the architecture is being is designed and now it's beginning to be implemented. So we will be getting to a spot where buildings will be having those identifiable smart goals determined by teachers looking at data set based on what they've identified they want students to know and be able to do and driving that force. So I would anticipate uh not too distant future that we'll have colleagues at the end of the table will be speaking here was our high level empowerment plan. Here's where we focused it on here's what we identified as our target and here's what we did to go ahead and make things happen and here's what those results were. So that that that kind of process is coming forth. It's just we it's a it's a it's a battleship we're trying

199to move forward and so it doesn't turn a dime but the the architecture is designed and set. Um and so that will be coming and then opportunities to be involved with the whole collective board about that is something we'll be going to. So we'll dipping in and out of those opportunities and things like that regard too. So I just let you know that'll be coming. I did want to go ahead and just thank our teachers certainly for a great start to the year. And I also want to thank the board for that too because as I visited the schools pretty consistently what I heard was by having two days in August before we started the school year again we come in we get some things taken care of some of the business but then particular

200that second day allowed those teams to come together to see clarity of what they're looking for to start the school year. So the start of school this Tuesday was a very smooth piece and just we went and revisited today and they uh across the board there was much more you know of a calmness preparedness and set ready. You know teachers are really want to get things excellent 100% first time and so the reality is they had probably a little bit more time to do that as a team too. So I know the board was supportive of allowing us to go ahead and start that before in August and so it's two days but it really helped. In addition to that, that was one of those additional days for professional learning community work that we able

201to do. So, you know, going around on those second days and seeing teams of teachers getting ready and set and prepared for the support for the children coming in this Tuesday. Um, again, thank you for hearing from what we were looking at as how do we make that as smooth of a start as we could and then um, you know, certainly it helps us with some of our calendaring a little bit later in the year. So, thank you for that. >> Thanks everybody. >> Thank you. Uh motion to adjurnn. John, second by Bill. All those in favor? 70. Thank you.